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Angola’s main opposition party has filed a legal complaint challenging the Electoral Commission’s ruling that the ruling party won last week’s elections, a letter seen by the news agency Reuters show.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, the opposition National Union for the Complete Independence of Angola (UNITA) said it would file a complaint, the effect of which would be to suspend the announcement of the results of the vote.
It was unclear whether UNITA’s letter to the unanimous committee on Monday was the same complaint.
After the most heated elections since independence from Portugal in 1975, the commission reported on Monday that 51.17 percent of voters backed the former Marxist Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), extending its almost 50-year uninterrupted rule.
Its longtime rival, UNITA, won 43.95 percent of the vote, its best ever, according to the committee.
UNITA’s letter said the party’s representative on the committee “was not granted the right to record his complaints about the election results in the result sheet”.
UNITA leader Adalberto Costa Junior has said several times over the past few days that he does not recognize the vote and has lodged a complaint.
“UNITA reiterates that it will not recognize the results announced by the National Electoral Commission until the complaints it already has are resolved,” the party said in a statement on Tuesday.
Under Angola’s rules, if UNITA wants to challenge the outcome, it must first lodge a complaint with the committee. If rejected, the party can take the matter to the Constitutional Court, which must rule within 72 hours.
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