Luanda - Angola Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) appealed Wednesday to political parties running for August's general elections in the country, to moderate the language in their messages during the election campaign.
The appeal was launched by Dom Gabriel Mbilingi, head of the Electoral Observation Mission of the Angolan Electoral Observatory (OEA), at the end of a meeting with the president of the Constitutional Court (TC), Laurinda Cardoso, in Luanda.
According to Mbilingi, who is also archbishop of Lubango, political parties are responsible for creating an environment that allows elections to run smoothly.
The archbishop added that competing parties should be careful and responsible to prevent the electoral environment from being undermined by messages they send and lack of respect among themselves.
To prevent such things from happening during the electoral campaign, the head of the OEA said, the Electoral Observatory Mission intends to "monitor" the conduct during the entire process.
Gabriel Mbilingi said he discussed with Laurinda Cardoso issues linked to the electoral process and his institution´s intention to be included as an electoral observer.
As for the political rallies planned for Saturday by three political parties to be held in Luanda, the archbishop said he discourages them from taking place on the same day.
In the prelate’s opinion, the holding of rallies by three political forces on the same day "would not be prudent", since "the population does not yet have the democratic culture rooted".
He said he hopes that the voters will not turn their demonstrations into spaces to wage war against one another.
The Constitutional Court, as an electoral jurisdiction in charge to assess the regularity and validity of the candidacies for general elections, has just closed the phase of correcting possible shortcomings from the initial applications (candidacies).
However, if the TC confirms the absence of contestation and rejection of candidacies or complaints, it will send to the National Electoral Commission (CNE) the complete paperwork on all admitted lists.
One copy of the lists will be displayed at the door of the TC and another list will be sent to the candidates' representatives.
So far, from the eight political groups, seven of them are political parties and one coalition, namely MPLA, CASA-CE, APN, UNITA, PRS, FNLA, PHA and P-NJANGO, presented candidacies for the general elections.
