Luanda – The Head of State of Angola, João Lourenço, travels to South Africa this Tuesday with the aim of attending the inauguration of his counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, re-elected last Friday.
In this regard, President João Lourenço on Sunday congratulated Cyril Ramaphosa on his re-election as South African President.
"On behalf of the Angolan people and on my own behalf, I want to congratulate Your Excellency on Your reappointment to the high position of President of the Republic of South Africa", writes the statesman in a message made official Sunday.
He considered that Cyril Ramaphosa ́s re-election occurred during an exemplary election process in which the common sense of its participants remained because they knew how to create an adequate framework for a successful and democratic dialogue.
"I would therefore like to highlight Your Excellency's conciliatory and open-to-dialogue role, which became the fundamental and crucial factor for the continuity of the institutions of the South African State and their functioning, in a climate of harmony, stability and national concord", expressed President Lourenço.
He also took the opportunity to reiterate the Angolan Government's desire to maintain and continually strengthen the strong ties of friendship, solidarity and cooperation existing between the two nations and peoples.
"Please accept, Your Excellency, my best wishes for the new term that will soon begin, as well as good health and personal well-being", he concluded
On Friday, South Africa's National Assembly (Lower House) re-elected Cyril Ramaphosa to lead the country, despite losing an absolute majority in the May 29 elections, hours after John Steenhuisen, leader of the main opposition, the center-right liberal party Democratic Alliance (DA), said in a message to the nation that it had reached an agreement with the President's party for a "government of national unity".
Ramaphosa's party, the historic African National Congress (ANC), won 40.20% of the vote and 159 of the 400 seats in parliament, while the AD, heir to the white political leadership that opposed apartheid, won 21.81% of the votes and 87 seats in the parliament.
The ANC lost its absolute majority for the first time since the 1994 elections, when Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president and the segregationist apartheid regime (1948-1994) was abolished.
After playing an important role in the negotiations that led to the dismantling of apartheid, having been a union leader and having prospered in the private sector, Ramaphosa, 71, came to the presidency in 2018 with the promise of change to end corruption. which tarnished the mandate of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma (2009-2018).
ART/MRA/jmc
