Luanda - The Constitutional Court (TC) dismissed CASA-CE´s electoral coalition appeal contesting the results of the general elections held on 24 August of the current year in Angola, due to the non-observance of legal procedures.
The Constitutiional Court, which also functions as Electoral Court, states that CASA-CE (Broad Convergence for the Salvation of Angola - Electoral Coalition) filed its appeal refuting the national tabulation of the general elections, on 1st September.
The coalition led by Manuel Fernandes claimed that the definitive results published by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) do not match those of its parallel count.
The electoral coalition appeal mentioned non-compliances in the votes obtained in the provinces of Huambo, Cuanza Norte and Benguela, where the CNE count allegedly gave it fewer votes than it should have.
Due to that, CASA-CE requested the court to order a recount of the votes based on the pre-existing minutes to ensure the election of CASA-CE MP´s to the National Assembly.
In its conclusions, the TC explained that it dismissed the appeal because CASA-CE had not filed a complaint with the CNE.
The court clarifies that under the combined provisions of the Constitution, the electoral law and the Law of Constitutional Procedure, a prior complaint to the CNE, as the entity in charge of organizing and conducting the electoral process at national level, is required for electoral litigation to take place.
The court also said it had found that even if CASA-CE had complied with this legal requirement, its claim would be unfounded because it only submitted evidence for Cuanza Norte, where 849 votes had been counted, according to the compliant summary reports.
According to official results from the CNE, CASA-CE obtained 0.76% of the votes (47,446) not enough to elect a deputy (Mp), losing to the Social Renewal Party (PRS) its position as the country´s third largest political force, which it had won in the 2012 elections.
Meanwhile, Adalberto Costa Júnior, the president of UNITA party also appealed to the Constitutional Court for disagreeing with the results announced by the CNE, which gave victory to the MPLA and its presidential candidate, João Lourenço, with 51.17% of the votes.
The Court has promised to present its conclusions this Thursday on the appeal lodged by UNITA, in order to close the phase of complaints about the election results.
CNE data show that the MPLA obtained about 3.209,000 votes corresponding to 124 parliamentary seats against 2.786,000 votes of UNITA for 90 seats which got 43.95%.
In third position, Benedito Daniel´s of PRS won 71,351 votes (1.14%) two deputies, followed by the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) led by Nimi a Nsimbi, and the newcomer Humanist Party of Angola (PHA) of Florbela Catarina Malaquias, with two parliamentary seats each.
The National Patriotic Alliance (APN) led by Quintino Moreira and the Nationalist Party for Justice in Angola (P-NJANGO) of Eduardo “Dinho” Chingunji were also left without seats.
The latter two are exposed to extinction by the Constitutional Court for having fallen below the 0.5% threshold imposed by law for the survival of political parties.
These were the fifth general elections, in Angola, and the first with the participation of the Angolan citizens in the diaspora, after those held in 1992, 2008, 2012 and 2017.
Meanwhile, all four previous editions were won by the MPLA.
