Luanda - The National Electoral Commission (CNE) said Wednesday in Luanda that the general elections held in the whole country “were a success, regardless of some reports of unproven damaging acts".
Speaking at a press conference at the end of the voting process, CNE spokesman, Lucas Quilundo, said that, so far, the CNE has not received any complaint or notification related to irregularities in the process.
He explained that as soon as the process ended, the counting began, in accordance with the drawn up minutes and that this task is ongoing, which is why there is no forecast for the release of the definitive results.
“Our satisfaction and conclusion that the elections were conducted with smoothness, transparency and legality is not only an assessment resulting from the findings and analyses, but also by reports and views of observers”, reinforced the official.
He admitted there had been some overzealousness of some CNE technicians, particularly in the annulment of votes and difficulties in accrediting delegates, for which he apologised, as he received the information with “amazement and strangeness”.
The spokesman for the National Electoral Commission explained that the law does not provide for the disclosure of provisional results, as the minutes are being drawn up, and that there is no other scrutiny centre or parallel entity to the CNE.
“Final results can only be released by the CNE, and there is no other electoral processing centre. Only the results announced by that body have relevance and are valid”, assured Lucas Quilundo.
Regarding alleged displacement of voters, he said this was a false issue, and that the entire voting population was distributed according to their residences or indication of the voters themselves, according to the law which establishes the two principles of stability and proximity.
Lucas Quilundo stressed that for those living in urban centres, the distance to the polling station is set at five kilometres, while for peri-urban areas it is set at 15 kilometres, to give everyone the opportunity to vote.
The official added that taking into account that the ideas was to have all eligible citizens to be able to vote, “we made an exception so that many citizens can vote with an expired Identity Card, the photocopy or this document renewal receipt (...).
Regarding the reduction of the voting period, from 8h00 to 19h00 to 8h00 to 16h00, Lucas Quilundo explained that this was because of Law 36/11 that was revoked by Law 30/21 of 30 November, which changed the schedule, without preventing those in the queues from exercising the suffrage right.
Seven political forces took part in the general election, namely MPLA, UNITA, PRS, FNLA, APN, PHA and P-NJANGO and CASA-CE electoral coalition.
These were the fifth elections in Angola.
The last general elections gave victory to the MPLA, with 61.08% of the vote, followed by UNITA (26.67%) and CASA-CE (9.44%), according to official data.
