Angola’s Constitutional Court On Thursday rejected a complaint filed by the runner-up in the August presidential election seeking to nullify the poll results, reported The Reuters.
Last week, Angola’s electoral commission declared the long-ruling Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) as the winner of the election. As per the official results announced, the MPLA secured 51.17 percent of the vote, handing President Joao Lourenco, 68, a second term, while the main opposition party The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) got 43.95% of the vote.
Soon after the results were announced, UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior alleged discrepancies between the commission’s count and the party’s own tally and accused the electoral commission, which mostly controlled by the MPLA, of fraud. He claimed a partial parallel count suggested his party had come ahead, winning 49.5 percent against 48.2 percent for the MPLA.
But, on Thursday, Angola’s constitutional court rejected the appeal filed by the opposition party saying the evidence it presented “does not call the overall results into question”.
“The Constitutional Court has dismissed the electoral litigation appeal brought by the political party UNITA,” the court said in a summary of its decision.
UNITA and other opposition parties have called for peaceful demonstrations to protest against what they have described as election “irregularities”.
This year’s election was the most closely fought election since independence from Portugal in 1975. About 6.4 million of the total 14 million registered Angolans voted in the election. Voter turnout, however, was low on voting day with just 45.7% of registered voters casting their ballots.
Previously, UNITA legally challenged its loss in the 2017 election but the courts ruled in favor of the MPLA. Notably, the MPLA has been the only party to govern Angola since the country gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
