Luanda - National Assembly (AN) Speaker, Carolina Cerqueira, highlighted Thursday, in Luanda, the crucial role of the Angolan parliament, through parliamentary diplomacy, in preserving and promoting regional and global peace and security.
According to Carolina Cerqueira, who was speaking at the solemn closing ceremony of the II Legislative Session of the V Legislature, Angola has sent delegations of deputies on electoral observation missions and participated in dialogue initiatives with a view to achieving peace in the world.
She stated that these missions, in addition to fulfilling an international duty, highlight the human character that defines the actions of this House of Laws.
Therefore, she informed that Angolan legislators will continue to intervene in global forums and meetings, promoting peace, security and solidarity between nations, exalting the exercise of intervening citizenship to all.
The AN Speaker highlighted a set of actions to promote the culture of peace, inclusion, transparency and democracy in the southern region of the African continent, through electoral observation in South Africa and Namibia, exchanges of experiences with counterparts in Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde and França, among others.
She stressed that Angolan parliamentarians were in solidarity with populations victims of conflicts in Sudan, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the north of Mozambique and in other regions of the world.
"We maintain our solidarity with these brotherly peoples and leave our appeal, through parliamentary diplomacy, that cultivating peace is the right path to political and social stability", she stated.
Parliamentary Diplomacy
Carolina Cerqueira considered the organization, in Luanda, of the 147th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to be remarkable, in which more than a thousand deputies from all over the world participated in the event, opened by the Angola Head of State, João Lourenço.
Angola, she recalled, thus became the second Portuguese-speaking country, after Brazil, to hold the biggest event of the World's Parliaments.
Emphasis was also placed on the holding, in the country's capital, of the 64th Parliamentary Assembly of the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union and the Constitutive Meetings of the OACPS-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
Likewise, the Angolan parliament speaker highlighted the 55th Assembly of the SADC-PF which brought together the chairs of Parliaments in the region, with Angola acting as a facilitator in the process of transforming the parliamentary forum into a regional parliament with the membership of Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
She welcomed the AN's accession to the Francophonie parliament during the 49th session that took place in Montreal (Canada), last July, as well as the participation in other parliamentary events at regional and international level, through national monitoring groups.
The Angola Parliamentar highlighted the visits of Heads of State from Brazil, Lula da Silva, Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Timor-Leste, José Ramos-Horta and Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, who in the hemicycle reaffirmed friendship between peoples.
Carolina Cerqueira announced that AN was elected to be part of the Task Force of Women Speakers of Parliaments from several regions of the world to bring together and coordinate strategies in favor of issues impacting the global context.
She recalled that as head of the AN, during the II parliamentary session, she granted 54 hearings to, in most cases, address issues linked to strengthening parliamentary cooperation and exchange.
The 2nd year of the V legislature, which ended Thursday, was marked by the holding in Angola of the 147th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, in October 2023.
The Legislature comprises five legislative sessions or parliamentary years, beginning on October 15th and lasting one year, without prejudice to the intervals provided by law.
The effective period of operation of the National Assembly is 10 months and ends on August 15th.
Out of the working period (15 August to 15 October), the AN may operate extraordinarily by deliberation of the Plenary, by convening of the Permanent Committee or, due to its impossibility, and in case of emergency, on the initiative of more than half of the deputies in office. VIC/CF/DOJ
