Luanda, ANGOLA, June 24 - UNITA, the main opposition political party in Angola, pointed out last Friday the party's challenges for the local elections, set for 2020. ,

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Among the challenges pointed out by the party leader, Isaías Samakuva, are the demand for a new electoral registration and the restructuring of the National Electoral Commission (CNE).

 

UNITA’s president, who was speaking at the opening of a seminar on local government, defended the implementation of local power throughout the country.

 

He considered it essential that a serious political dialogue be held on issues relating to the effective implementation of elected local authorities.

 

 

According to Isaías Samakuva, the main objective of the  institutionalization of municipal elections is to ensure the decentralization of public services in all municipalities of the country and not in some.

 

 

"All municipalities are equal and comprise Angolan citizens with equal rights, they have all the same duties and not in a gradual manner," he stressed.

 

The package of draft-laws on Local Elections and Governments presented by the Angolan Executive will be under public discussion for two months and it is different from that of UNITA, mainly in regard to the issue of the gradual geographical perspective.

 

UNITA and the other opposition parties want gradualism principle to be administrative (gradual transfer of competences to local governments), but the government views gradualism as a geographic issue.

 

To UNITA, the gradual way of creating local democratic power is to implement them on the whole of the national territory at the same time, even if some structures of the local (elected) authorities are only institutionalised in a posterior moment.

 

The Executive's proposal, supported by the ruling MPLA party, considers that it should be a geographical gradualism, that is, initially the local governments would have to be implemented on the more densely populated urban areas and only later on, roughly by 2035, would it cover the entire national territory.

 

UNITA argues that the Government's proposal leaves aside some of the citizens while the Executive understands that this is the best way to ensure the success of creating this new level of Angolan democracy in a solid way.

 

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