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Angolan ex-President’s Men Indicted over Chinese Deals

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On Friday July 8, coinciding with news of the death of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, it was revealed that two of his closest associates face trial on corruption charges in connection with business deals funded by the Peoples’ Republic of China to purchase Angolan oil and fund post-war reconstruction.

Facing multiple criminal charges are two Angolan Generals, Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior (better known by his nom-de-guerre, ‘Kopelipa’), and Leopoldino Fragoso de Nascimento (aka General ‘Dino’) along with co-defendants including Fernando Gomes dos Santos (a lawyer), a Chinese national, You Haming, and three corporate bodies: the China International Fund (CIF) and two companies registered offshore, Plansmart and Utter Right.  

The indictment, signed by three prosecutors[1] from the Ministério Público (Office of Public Prosecution) on July 4, runs to 80 pages listing 233 separate clauses detailing the alleged crimes, and citing 36 named witnesses to be called to testify. Generals ‘Kopelipa’ and ‘Dino’ both face trial on multiple charges of criminal association, money-laundering, fraud, falsification of documents and influence-peddling. General ‘Kopelipa’ faces additional charges of abuse of power and peculation.

BUT WHAT ABOUT MANUEL VICENTE?

Inexplicably, the third member of former President dos Santos’s ‘Triumvirate’, his one-time Vice-President and the National Oil Company Sonangol chairman and CEO Manuel Vicente, seems to have slipped the net. Vicente had been Dos Santos’s right-hand man in moving petrodollars into their various get-rich-quick schemes over decades and was also the prime mover of the relationship with China, including with the notorious Chinese ‘agent and fixer’ Sam Pa (currently serving a prison sentence in China for corruption).

The indictment reveals that at least at US $1.5 billion of China’s payment for Angolan oil were never passed on to Sonangol or Angola. It stressed that a Hong Kong-based company named ‘China Sonangol International Holding Limited’ (CSIHL), took and kept China’s payments for itself while acting as an intermediary. Guess what? According to the indictment, the chairman of CSIHL, which had no office or representative based in Angola, was none other than Manuel Vicente, chairman and CEO of Sonangol during these transactions.

Isn’t it curious then, when Manuel Vicente appears to have been the principal actor in this ingenious scheme to defraud the Angolan Treasury and the state-owned Sonangol company, that he is neither indicted nor called as a witness? Instead the chief prosecution witness from Sonangol is Francisco de Lemos Maria, Vicente’s successor as chairman and CEO (who arguably should be on the charge sheet himself). Lemos Maria had been Sonangol’s Chief Finance Officer during Vicente’s tenure. Other VIP witnesses include Carlos Feijó, the former Minister of State and the President’s Chief of Staff, and the former President of ESCOM, (Espírito Santo Commerce), a subsidiary of the Portuguese conglomerate Grupo Espírito Santo, Hélder Bataglia.

It is the case that as a former Vice-President, Manuel Vicente has enjoyed five years of immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during his mandate, but that expires in September 2022. In any event, jurists argue that immunity conferred on him as Vice-President does not cover crimes he may have committed as the head of Sonangol from 1999-2012. It makes no sense for the state prosecution to issue an indictment that imputes crimes to Manuel Vicente on dozens of pages without including him as a defendant.

ZANGO

The prosecution case contains detailed (and exhaustive) evidence of a shady scheme by which the state was defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars. Several buildings, funded through the Gabinete de Reconstrução Nacional (GRN), and intended for public housing in the Zango neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the capital, were sold back to Sonangol by CIF, leaving the state owning none of the buildings it had paid for.  In some instances, the state paid for the same buildings twice over with nothing to show for it. Inevitably, the state funds came directly from Sonangol (under Manuel Vicente). So, although General Kopelipa was tangentially involved as Head of the GRN, the financial sleight of hand in paying for buildings that were sold on for sums that were not paid to the real owner, was overseen by Manuel Vicente. And, according to the indictment, some US $2.5 billion of the funds routed to the GRN for reconstruction came from Chinese loans.

Furthermore, from 2010 onwards, management of the GRN building projects intended for public housing was transferred from the GRN to Sonangol. They were under the responsibility of both Manuel Vicente and two senior directors serving under him:  Francisco Lemos José (then CFO and later his successor) and Orlando Veloso. Moreover, the private employee of Vicente, Paulo Cascão, signed on behalf CIF for the sales to Sonangol with a power of attorney granted him by the same Vicente. Why then aren’t these four men facing charges in the Zango housing project case? The defence is likely to argue that General Kopelipa had no direct oversight of this project and General Dino was not involved in it. To add to the confusion, Paulo Cascão was also the executive director of Delta Imobiliária, which sold the Chinese-built social housing projects to the public. Kopelipa, Dino and Vicente, aka the ‘Triumvirate’, were the beneficial owners of Delta Imobiliária.

CHINA INTERNATIONAL FUND

A third instance of corruption cites the infamous China International Fund (CIF) with evidence that public funds for the construction of buildings were (once again) used for private ends. General Dino’s only connection with the CIF came at the direct request of President dos Santos to make sense of the CIF’s financial affairs and General Kopelipa’s only involvement was to organize the transfer to the state of all CIF assets in Angola as reparation.

However, the indictment fails to mention key information on the CIF matter offered by former President José Eduardo dos Santos himself. He wrote to Pitta Grós, the Attorney-General of the Republic, both on December 20, 2020 and November 8, 2021 offering his full cooperation in the investigation into the CIF scandal. The Attorney-General never replied. So the former President voluntarily prepared a detailed 12-page deposition, duly notarized, in which he completely exonerates General Dino of any responsibility in the affairs of the CIF, stating that “Lt Gen Leopoldino Fragoso de Nascimento and Dr Fernando Santos had nothing to do with the CIF company and had no knowledge of the origin of the funds that were invested in CIF Ltd.”  This deposition also states for the record that General Kopelipa acted lawfully, under the President’s instructions, in the matter.

It is clear from the content and tone of the deposition that former President dos Santos takes full responsibility, exonerates Kopelipa and Dino, and emphasizes that all actions taken in connection with the CIF were in the interests of post-war reconstruction.

THE OBLIGATION TO PRODUCE ALL AVAILABLE EVIDENCE

In itself this does not relieve the members of the Triumvirate from a case to answer on their involvement in these (and numerous other) questionable business ventures on behalf of former President dos Santos. All the senior members of the Dos Santos Administration who became obscenely wealthy – allegedly because of opaque business deals financed by public money conducted through offshore shell companies – have questions to answer.

However, they also have the right to a fair trial, and to the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven to the satisfaction of the courts of law. It is, therefore, the duty both of the state prosecutors and the defence lawyers to ensure they produce all the available evidence, especially testimony from the key actors. This would involve both admitting the former President’s notarized deposition into evidence and requiring the testimony of Manuel Vicente and others involved in, connected to, or with knowledge of, the alleged crimes.


[1] State Prosecution Attorneys Pedro Carvalho, Manuel Bambi, and Gilberto Vunge.


Angolan Elections 2022: Party Manifestos Silent on Judicial Reform

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Ahead of Angola’s presidential and parliamentary elections this month, the United States Senate has taken the unusual step of passing a resolution calling for the electoral process to be conducted fairly, peacefully and transparently. Angolans might feel affronted by this: doesn’t their Constitution, along with numerous laws and regulations, already guarantee this?

The Senate Resolution says: “Angola is classified as ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House due to the ruling MPLA’s abuse of state institutions to control political processes and limit free expression”. It is critical of state control over the mass media and bureaucratic interference in opposition parties, and demands all parties and candidates be allowed to campaign without undue restriction, harassment or intimidation.

For this election to be credible, the US Senate urges the Angolan government to take a number of measures, including making electoral rolls public and allowing the European Union to send election monitors. In effect, the Americans have documented widespread concerns that Angola pays lip service to democracy while continuing to tilt the scales in favour of the ruling MPLA party.

In one way or another, the MPLA can access resources denied to any other political party. As the party of government, it can set rules and put people in place that may give the MPLA an advantage over the others. And in the event of any dispute over the conduct of the electoral process, including any challenge to the announced result, the MPLA can count on a roster of judges who owe their positions to the party that has ruled Angola since Independence in 1975.

It’s been two decades since the end of the civil war, yet most Angolans have yet to see any peace dividend. Where is the promised infrastructure and economic development for the far-flung provinces? Amid growing frustration and discontent many experts believe this election could see popular support for the MPLA begin to ebb and any attempt to rig the election could then spark unrest.

Diverse countries have different interpretations of democracy and the mere existence of laws, or the holding of periodic elections, may not necessarily guarantee fairness. Although this is the fifth multiparty election since 1992, Angola’s government and institutions have not always upheld democratic values, such as freedom of the press, the freedom to organise and register political parties and without an independent and impartial judiciary, there can be no confidence that the government can be held to account for any malpractice.

It’s strange then that none of the parties contesting this election has included in their manifesto any mention of judicial reform. Angola’s recent history has shown that the Justice system is in urgent need of reform, starting with a root-and-branch review of the judiciary. Far too many serving judges, especially at the most senior levels, have shown themselves to be partisan and incapable of giving independent and impartial judgement. Why else would the Attorney General of the Republic have determined to prosecute certain individuals but not others, regardless of overwhelming evidence?

If Angola wishes its political system to be respected across the globe, it is not enough to tackle economic questions – it must take concrete action to guarantee the separation and independence of the legislative, administrative and judicial estates.

The 58-page MPLA manifesto proclaims its overall strategy as ‘to consolidate peace and a democratic state of law and continue to reform the state, justice system, public administration, social communication, freedom of expression, and civil society’. This is the one and only time that the word “Justice” appears and there is no mention of how they might intend to reform it. This is extraordinary given the emphasis placed by the incumbent government on the fight against corruption. As we have seen, the judicial system was inadequate and unprepared to tackle this titanic task, leading to criticisms that its members excused some while pursuing a politically motivated vendetta against others.

The Angolan legal system has been dysfunctional and subordinate to realpolitik from the start. Add to this the inexperience, or lack of adequate training, of judges and it is hardly surprising there was no agreed procedure or template for handling complex financial crimes. These circumstances gave rise to an unsystematic and tardy case by case treatment.

As for the main opposition party, UNITA, mentions of judicial reform embrace lofty ideals such as ‘a national plan for judicial infrastructure’ to deliver ‘more straightforward, accessible and speedy justice”. However, it too fails to detail any specific measures as to how to improve the system or introduce technological innovation.

The absence of concrete plans to reform the judicial system has become a bone of contention in Angola in recent years. The country is still waiting for the most corrupt offenders to be brought to justice, men such as Manuel Vicente, the former Sonangol President elevated to Deputy President of Angola during the Dos Santos Administration. His post guaranteed him immunity from prosecution for a period of five years and there is considerable expectation as to what may happen when that period ends in September.

TALKING POINTS

Maka Angola has consulted legal experts with a view to offering the government and opposition parties some ideas for judicial reform: e.g.,

  1.  REFORMAT LAW SCHOOL ENTRY AND CURRICULUM: to admit only those with the best grades as law students and offer them a broader curriculum, setting aside the post-colonial Portuguese paradigm to embrace the best practice of respected African jurisdictions such as Botswana and Namibia to offer up-to-date modules on criminology, economic and financial crimes.
  2. REVISE EXISTING LEGISLATION TO SIMPLIFY DUE PROCESS: to guarantee basic human rights for all parties and eliminate unhelpful bureaucracy or formalities which slow down the judicial process.
  3. INTRODUCE THE PLEA BARGAIN: so major cases can be resolved quickly and fairly.
  4. REFORM THE APPEALS PROCESS: to ensure that the Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação) is the proper forum for appeals against judgements handed down by lower courts, ensuring the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court hear only those cases that would set a precedent or would require interpretation or redefinition of jurisprudence. This would end the use of the Supreme Court as a court of first instance for privileged persons.
  5. LIAISE WITH THE LEGAL BODY REPRESENTING ATTORNEYS TO CREATE A JUDICIAL BODY TO PROTECT DUE PROCESS: to create a team of public defenders to represent defendants without the resources to hire their own defence attorneys, to inspect prison conditions, and ensure the release of anyone held beyond the legal detention limit.
  6. CREATE A JUDICIAL PAY SCALE: to ensure judges are remunerated according to their qualifications, experience and status and end the system of unregulated perquisites and benefits.
  7. BRING THE CIVIL CODE UP TO DATE: by conducting a systematic review.
  8. CREATE AN INDEPENDENT COURT ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM: to supply, monitor and maintain the necessary basic infrastructure for the courts to function, such as adequate furniture, functional washrooms, and all the necessary basic materials such as audio-visual recording equipment, stenographic equipment, paper, printers and ink supplies.
  9. REQUIRE ALL PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS TO RECEIVE PARLIAMENTARY CONFIRMATION: to emulate good practice elsewhere, as in the USA, by which presidential nominations for high-ranking administrative appointments are subject to oversight before their confirmation.
  10. REVISE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE MAGISTRATURE SUPREME COUNCIL: to introduce independent oversight.

Angolan Elections 2022: Indifferent Reception for President Lourenço in Malanje

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Who writes the campaign speeches for the Angolan President? A statistician? For a couple of hours on Wednesday, João Lourenço stupefied would-be MPLA supporters at a campaign rally in Malanje with a stuttering list of his government’s ‘achievements’ over the past five years, doing nothing to inspire confidence in MPLA’s ability to deliver on their promise of a better future.

Suffice to say, the speech was not well received by those in attendance. As the speech dragged on the frustration of those in attendance, particularly the young people, became all too clear. Members of the audience chatted, flittered, and giggled throughout, disregarding what was being said by the President. It was impossible to ignore the contempt demonstrated by the younger members of the audience, a clear signal that the MPLA was an antiquated out-of-touch party quickly losing its once uncontested grip on a pivotal demographic.

At times the President would start a new sentence, or paragraph, by emphatically shouting “MALANJE!”, the name of the town, followed by a minute-long pause. I began to wonder if he’d lost his place while reading out his speech or if this were a pre-recorded segment and there’d been some technical malfunction. The pregnant pause would eventually be followed by the next point on his list.

Through the years MPLA demagogues had become accustomed to engaging in a call-and-response routine. Perhaps Lourenço was pausing because he expected thousands of people to respond: “PRESENTE, CAMARADA PRESIDENT”, however, no such response came, and the organizers scrambled to fill the silence with canned applause to save face. The failure to parrot the expected reply made it clear they no longer see the MPLA leader as their comrade.

I was there with an Angolan journalist. We circulated, talking to people as we went, trying to gauge their most pressing concerns and whether any of the visiting candidates had enthused them. Some, perhaps suspicious of our intent, said at first that “naturally” their vote would be “for the MPLA, the peoples’ party”. But those who carried on talking to us soon revealed their disillusion. Anyone born after 2002, when the brutal civil war ended, had no reason to share their grandparents’ allegiance to a movement that brought liberation from colonialism, nor their parents’ acceptance of the wartime one-party system. They see no reason to support the historic party of government: “We study but there are no jobs for us, no future here.”

One after another, young people revealed their growing discontent with the current system. “People are hungry” was the most common complaint. “Everything is too expensive”.

Unfulfilled promises

Angola’s expected peace dividend has not brought any improvement in living standards for the majority. As João Lourenço droned on about some 500 new homes built in Malanje while the tens of thousands of people still living in crumbling colonial bungalows or one-roomed straw and mud huts, were grumbling “Well, who lives there? Not us”.

A one-party state accustomed to a centrally-planned economy may see itself as the paternalistic provider of everything, including housing, for the people. It creates a system of preferred patronage in which people have no option but to expect the state to provide. However, these days Malanje has grown far beyond the scope of a town that has had no significant construction since the colonial period. Over a million people now live in and around the town and it would be impossible for the state alone to satisfy the housing needs of so many.

As the President boasted of new roads completed to link Malanje to the capital, Luanda, some 350 kilometres to the west, those of us who had just endured six hours of giant potholes and dirt-road diversions were left blinking and open-mouthed at the blatant untruth.

The MPLA has spent millions on this campaign. The party hands out hats, t-shirts, wraps, flags, whistles, and beads in single use plastic bags, all emblazoned with the party logo – and sometimes the President’s face as well. It busses in thousands of party loyalists for the rallies. They are carefully placed right in front, stage-managed to show uncontrollable excitement to be captured by the cameras of the state-owned media, which fully controlled by the governing party. These party members whistle, cheer, pump fists and wave flags as required. But look ten rows back at those who came under their own steam to gawp at their President and hear his pitch, and you find people kissing their teeth, jeering openly, spitting at the empty promises repeated over 47 years and still undelivered.

Malanje is traditionally one of the MPLA strongholds. My strong impression is that the MPLA has already lost the youth vote here and may struggle to retain the loyalty of long-term supporters. Outside of the urban areas, Angola’s government has retained traditional leadership structures. Rural communities look to their traditional chief, the soba for guidance.

At this rally, the MPLA had brought the chiefs in from all over the province, some of them collected as early as 3 am. I was shocked to see them forced to sit on the ground, in the red dirt, at the side of the main stage. By midday with the sun burning down, the temperature had risen to 32º C with no cooling breeze. These sobas, many of them elderly, had been sitting there for hours with not so much as a cup of water given to them. They weren’t invited to join the President for lunch at the governor’s mansion – that was for the party apparatchiks.

It should surprise no-one to learn that the traditional authorities complain of being disrespected and maltreated. In conversation with one of the few female chiefs later –Soba Maria – she told me that the government has done nothing for her people: her community has no paved roads, no medical clinic, no school, no sanitation, only a single communal water pump with no other infrastructure whatsoever. As I was driven through rural areas surrounding the provincial capital after dark, long lines of people, mostly barefoot, were walking in single file at the road’s edge in pitch black conditions, many carrying on their heads baskets of the fruits and vegetables they had grown or gathered that day, as they made their way home.

Many people here count themselves lucky if they can provide a single meal for their family once a day. Empty bellies fuel discontent and the MPLA is clearly out of touch with the grinding existence of the people it has governed for four decades. Their campaign strategy seems so out-of-touch with reality: hours devoted to a litany of (frankly) paltry achievements, instead of an attempt to empathise and offer solutions.

Freedom of expression

Remarkably, younger people feel much freer to express their disapproval of the government compared with previous years. Over and over, we saw young men and women flashing the three-fingered sign that means they support the main opposition party, UNITA, or slating the current government out loud in public. Self-censorship for fear of immediate reprisal (at best detention and a beating, at worst maybe a bullet) has evaporated as quickly as peoples’ belief that the MPLA is capable of funding development across the provinces and not just filling the pockets of its leaders. This is a concrete achievement by President Lourenço, yet he never mentions it.

The MPLA seems in thrall to the cult of personality, as though their leader’s presence is enough. There was little or no attempt to adjust the text of his speech to make it relevant to the people of Malanje except for a fleeting reference to agriculture. Clearly the party is conscious of the perception that it has failed Angolans in the provinces but a list of economic talking points, such as how the Lourenço’s government has lowered national debt, is meaningless when the vast majority have no formal education beyond elementary or secondary school.

The President’s only nod to the actual locale of the rally (other than pathetic attempts to conjure a success out of residential construction for the few and road construction yet to be completed) was a little segment on agriculture and how the fertility of the ground and climate in Malanje could supply food reserves for years for Angola. “Could” is the operative word here. Without government investment in safe roads or rail links to nearby markets and refrigeration at more distant ones, without help for irrigation, fertilisation, seeds and seedlings, agricultural implements and machinery, how is this to be achieved in practice?

The lack of enthusiasm amongst the majority of those present in Malanje was so noteworthy that the MPLA organizers began to play canned applause for the moments when President Lourenço stopped speaking. He must have noticed, surely? Even the most charismatic of politicians would find it hard to win re-election on the strength of this campaign.

What’s the alternative?

What may yet save the MPLA is the conviction amongst many that the Opposition would do no better. “All these people (government members and officials) may be poor when they take the job, but they are rich very soon after,” one of our interlocutors was happy to be quoted as saying. It was a much-repeated sentiment.

The other factor in the MPLA’s favour is appreciation that Lourenço came to power inheriting a looted country, which, together with the falling price of oil and the COVID pandemic, hampered his efforts to relaunch the economy. Some say he should be given the chance of a second term to see if the MPLA really can deliver. Others argue that the President’s economic team are the same bad apples (with few exceptions) that helped Dos Santos plunder the Treasury. Perhaps, aware of the precariousness of his position, instead of a clean sweep Lourenço felt he had no option but to fill positions with loyalists at a time of transition.

Also, it cannot be discounted that the governing party came into this race with many advantages over its main opponent: it set the rules for the election, it counts on the resources and finances of government, absolute control of the state media, and can tip the balance in its own favour. The main opposition party, UNITA, has failed to put together a convincing and coherent manifesto. There are no specifics, no concrete plans, backed by evidence of how they would be financed or achieved.

Internal migration and demographic change showed in 2017 that UNITA has considerable support outside its traditional heartland. The MPLA knows the era when it could guarantee victory across the board, is over. UNITA’s candidate, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, says the Angolans are ready for change. And yes, they are. But does he have an experienced competent team who can hit the ground running, who have clear goals and estimates of how much of the national budget they can put towards achieving each one.

Silent on necessary reforms

Pro-democracy advocates argue that Angola needs a cross-party agreement for a separation of powers as well as a devolution of powers (and budgets) at provincial and municipal levels if things are to change. This would require considerable investment in training for public administrators and judges, appointed by selection on the basis of the best qualified, rather than partisanship, to create a non-political (or apolitical) cadre of career-minded public servants.

The current electoral system does not allow voters to pass judgement on corrupt or incompetent individuals. The electorate can only express a preference for one or other of the eight parties whose registration was approved, each of which has a slate of candidates in hierarchical order, the first of which is their leader and candidate for President. An Angolan voter does not have the power to choose someone from their region or district to represent them in parliament or as provincial governor. Under the current system, provincial governors, like ministers and senior officials, are appointed by presidential patronage. Not one of the parties in this election has expressed any intention to consider or discuss reforms of this kind. It’s a winner-take-all system designed to keep the party of power in power. The suspicion is that UNITA and the others simply want their turn on the gravy train.

Tone and style

Meanwhile back at the MPLA campaign rally in Malanje, after several hours of circulating through the crowd and listening to what people had to say, my over-riding impression was that the mood was indifference at best, contempt at worst. The atmosphere improved only when the President stopped speaking and the music started.

Lourenço’s dour style of public address could not be less well-suited to these times and places. I have yet to meet a single person, pro or anti-MPLA, willing to say they feel the President understands their plight. Instead, people said things like:

“Does he not know we are hungry?” “The President doesn’t feel our pain, none of them do.” “They are living well; they don’t care about us.” “These are just promises, promises… they don’t keep their promises.” “What can we do? If we vote for the others and they win, they are just there for their turn to fill their pockets.” “They are as bad as each other. If I vote… I don’t know if my vote counts for anything.”

If President Lourenço and the MPLA truly want to connect with the electorate at their remaining rallies, there is still time for them to adjust: show respect to local dignitaries, introduce more charismatic speakers, and get the President to speak last, and succinctly, with a realistic plan to address the cost of living and hunger issues. Instead of reading a lengthy script, have him talk to his fellow Angolans from the heart. Many people say they want to hear that he knows the MPLA has under-achieved, that he feels their pain, that he is sorry and wants to do better and that he understands this is the last-chance saloon.

Angolan Elections 2022: Polling Day

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From the time the polls opened at 0700, Angolans streamed into the Assembleias de Voto [polling stations] around the capital, Luanda, where some 33 percent of the national votes are cast.  Maka Angola spent the entire day touring the three most populous areas of Luanda.  What we witnessed was a peaceful, orderly, and swift process so far as the voting was concerned – later there would be allegations of some irregularities with videos circulated on social media alleging attempted fraud.

More than 14 million Angolans were eligible to vote in the August 24 poll and it was clear from the moment the Assembleias de Voto opened, that they would be busy.  All eight parties contesting this election had the right to appoint delegates as observers – but not all the parties could muster enough observers to scrutinize each one, as witnessed by national and international observers monitoring voting in diverse places.  

Some of these assembleias had several voting stations, the mesas de voto.  The designated assembleia for Maka Angola’s editor Rafael Marques was in Kinamba, where the polling station was set up as three separate tents, each with its own mesa.  The mesa where he voted, didn’t appear to have an opposition observer and he happened to mention this while being interviewed by a journalist for Mozambican television.  This set off a storm in a teacup, as it emerged that the UNITA delegate had been at the locale from an early hour.

It seemed like a small, possibly irrelevant, detail in terms of the broad picture of the day’s events but the significant attention and debate it attracted shows the nervousness on all sides that this election must be, and be seen to be, free and fair.   This is why UNITA’s leader, Adalberto Costa Júnior, called on supporters to vote and stay (“votou, sentou”) to bear witness to any attempt to rig the vote.

Much fuss was also made of other minor irregularities.  The national police, deployed without their usual handguns, were stationed in small numbers at each polling station.  The election law requires them to stay at a distance of 100 metres but in some places, such as narrow alleyways, or places where there might be larger crowds, they were closer than that.  Some assambleias did not post the register of voters as required by law.  Later, more serious allegations would emerge.

THE VOTE

The Maka Angola team spent the entire day touring the three most populous municipalities:  Cazenga, Viana and Cacuaco, while also receiving reports from around the city and elsewhere.  Overall, what we witnessed – and heard from others – was a calm, orderly and very efficient process. 

For most people it took less than a minute.  As they entered the tent or room, they would first show their identity card to be checked against the electoral roll by a CNE staffer in the presence of representatives of the various political parties.  Eight parties were standing in this election but the smaller parties did not always have enough volunteers to be in attendance at every polling station.

With identity confirmed, the voter is then handed a ballot paper showing, in vertical order, each of the eight parties.  The order was determined by pre-election ballot with UNITA at number three and the MPLA at number eight.  Alongside the party name and flag symbol is a picture of their candidate for President, i.e. the first person on the party list.

Voters are then instructed verbally to fold the ballot after putting an x in the box of their choice and then to insert it into the transparent ballot box.  All Angola uses these transparent ballot boxes so that scrutineers can see that they are not pre-stuffed and that there is no tampering.  When the poll closed at 1700 hours, the boxes were opened in the presence of party delegates and accredited observers to monitor the count.  The final tally is presented as one list, which has to be signed off by all the party delegates present.  This is then supposed to be posted for public inspection.

We toured polling stations from downtown Luanda to Cacuaco, Cazenga and Viana. These are not just the most populous in Luanda, they also contain some of the poorest, most neglected neighbourhoods, where garbage is piled high in the streets mingling with human waste.  These are areas of jerry-built homes around unpaved, trodden earth alleyways, often with no piped water or sewerage.  

Areas such as Kicolo and Ngola Kiluanje show mass support for UNITA.  After Angola’s first democratic election since Independence, in 1992, violence erupted and there were mass killings of people living here in areas perceived as UNITA strongholds.  Poverty, unemployment, hunger and dire living conditions are the factors making people here choose an alternative to the MPLA.  Some older people, brandishing three fingers as support for UNITA which is third in order on the ballot paper, told us they were no longer afraid of their bodies being thrown into the sea this time.  When polls closed at 1700 hours, almost all of the areas we visited were going quietly about their business, observed by the party representatives. 

There was one single exception, Assambleia de Voto No. 400 in the Sambizanga neighbourhood of the municipality of Cazenga. We saw a large group of young men standing within 100 metres of the tents used as polling stations and as we drew closer, we saw some acting aggressively, gesturing and yelling.  We approached on foot and found they had been drinking and were now, completely unprovoked, insulting the three police, one woman and two men, on duty.   Throughout the capital, the police were completely unarmed as ordered by the authorities to help instill a sense of trust (and avert any possibility of weapons discharge).

Other journalists had also approached to investigate, and as each worked to interview the crowd it became clear that the unruly ones were very drunk.  They shouted over each other, stumbled, flung their arms about but once they had yelled their grievances, some then dispersed.  Police reinforcements were on their way. While the national police were on foot and unarmed, convoys of Rapid Intervention Police [the PIR ‘ninjas’] drove around some parts of Luanda with sirens blaring and lights flashing to demonstrate their readiness for action in the event of any trouble.

IRREGULARITIES

Some assambleias did not display the cadastro – the register of electors assigned to their station, which we saw affixed to solid walls in many places but not to the canvas of tented stations.  The final count tally is presented as an Acta, which by law should be posted at each station.   We heard reports that the acta was not posted in some places.

Videos circulating on social media showed in one case a lady holding tightly onto the tally in her hand while others accused her of belonging to the MPLA and trying to tamper with it.  Another video showed a UNITA delegate complaining he had been ejected from the polling station for complaining about irregularities. There may be simple explanations for some of these but taken out of context they serve to ratchet up the tension.  

The opposition have created an expectation that they could actually overturn the MPLA supermajority and  form the next government.  Was this ever a realistic possibility?   Many ‘experts’ have predicted throughout that the MPLA would win, albeit with a reduced majority.  It is undeniable that support for the MPLA is falling – at a rate of 10% in three successive elections.  But most people are not ‘experts’.  What ordinary people desperate for change have been hearing is that the election is a close one, that UNITA has its best chance ever, that UNITA itself expects to win.  This sets the stage for rejection of the result if UNITA does not get a majority.  And this is the most likely scenario – big wins for UNITA in Luanda and other cities but not big enough.

RISKS AHEAD

Angolans sense that momentous changes are taking place with a significant swing of support to the opposition.  They fear the MPLA is not ready to surrender its control over the levers of power.  Claims that the ruling party may rig the election in its favour and the publishing of polls, prior to any results, showing the MPLA retaining about 60% of the expected vote, are stoking anger. 

Our team saw no evidence of rigging or fraud at the stations we visited on election day.  That is not the same as affirming the election was fair.  It has been evident throughout that the party of government was able to skew the process in its favour:  including a revision of the electoral law, the appointment of their own as President of the CNE, spending far in excess of other parties, and an MPLA propaganda advantage across the board.

Social media filled the gap for UNITA and other opposition parties.  As elsewhere in the world, the algorithms are such that the most controversial posts get shared the most.  Hence a rush to post every rumour, every suspicion can quickly generate a mood bordering on paranoia.

The UNITA leader, Adalberto Costa Júnior, and civil society associations had called on people to stay in the area after casting their vote, to watch for any irregularities (votou, sentou). 

In the three municipalities we toured throughout the day there was no sign of anyone actually doing this (except much later at that one station in Sambizanga) but later we got reports that people were gathering in some places “to protect the vote”.  So far, this election has been free of what Angolans call confusão but there is every risk that the final result – likely to be issued within days – will dash the hopes of millions on one side or the other.   The risk is that they may take their frustration and anger onto the streets. 

Devolution: Local Government Is the Way Forward

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The situation in Angola’s is complex. The younger generation have shown the depth of their discontent with the lack of opportunity for study or employment. Young people in Angola see nothing to help them offered in politicians’ and technocrats’ speeches about the economy and they are desperate to change their lives for the better.

This is why, in the election that just took place, the younger generation overwhelmingly voted for change, and they did so in an unparalleled peaceful and orderly manner. No good purpose could be served by creating a situation in which peace and tranquillity are abandoned for conflict and violence. Destructive behaviour now is not going to deliver employment or put food on the table. There has to be a political response that meets the aspirations of the younger generation, that eases the pain of a demographic that has shown it wants a radical change in politics, government, and the economy, and it wants that change now.

Why waste the excellent example of democratic and civic responsibility evinced by Angolans in the elections on August 24th? UNITA is entirely within its legitimate rights to challenge the results announced so far and to demand a recount. There is a right and proper way to do this, through the existing official channels, and this is exactly what UNITA is doing. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) needs to respond in the letter and spirit of the law, to examine all the signed-off tallies and compare them to ensure the correct results were registered and this process should be transparent.

You cannot achieve this by subjugating Angola’s national sovereignty and independence to a foreign organization. Angola neither wants nor needs to take orders from Portugal, or from any other foreign or multi-national body. Unwonted attempts to short-circuit the system, or sweep it aside, may seem like a practical solution in the short term, but they will set an anarchic and disastrous precedent.

The Angolan people, and above all, the under 30s, need answers. And they deserve to be given a full picture that can allay their fears and suspicions. Whatever the final numbers may show, there could (and should) be an immediate political response to the peoples’ demand for a change of attitudes and behaviour by the government. One aspect of the change they need to see should include stronger checks and balances on the powers of the presidency and government, including a requirement for scrutiny by the National Assembly, giving the opposition a more significant role in auditing the activities of government. The government needs to take swift action to make some of the necessary changes it has been contemplating, to show the electorate that it is listening to them and acting on their wishes. In particular, the government needs to act urgently to set a date for provincial and local elections, ideally in 2023.

People across the provinces need to be able to elect their local governments directly, so that the people holding these positions are not imposed by the national government but selected from their communities, with the local knowledge and contacts necessary to identify and prioritize the issues of most importance to their areas. Devolving powers to the provinces and local authorities would show voters that the national government has heard what they want and is acting on it. It allows the electorate to feel confident they can elect people they know and hold them directly to account. This act alone would alleviate some of the anger and tension felt across the nation.

People suspect the MPLA is reluctant to cede the reins of power for fear that UNITA has no experience of the complex tasks of government and may make a difficult economic situation worse. Provincial and local elections will certainly deliver devolved powers to UNITA in many places and gaining experience of direct control over local matters can serve as essential preparation for the wider task of governing nationally.

In addition, devolving administrative powers to provincial and local governments allows people outside the national capital to develop these skills and will create the capacity for a separation of powers between the political parties who may form governments and an independent and non-partisan public administration.

Change is inevitable. The older generation has a duty to help the younger generation acquire the necessary knowledge and skills so that in due course they can take over. The election on August 24th has clearly shown that Angolans are ready for alternância – for political parties to alternate in government, as happens in all the established democratic systems. It seems self-evident that the outgoing government should concentrate its efforts now on re-establishing civic reconciliation and harmony, and on creating the necessary conditions for future transfers of power, thus averting any possibility that outside and predatory forces could once again seize a moment of disunion for their own advantage. Attitudes need to change, so that instead of immediate electoral gain, parties are able to consider what can guarantee medium- and longer-term progress, resulting in gradual but effective improvements of the lives of the many, not just the few. Experts concur that acting quickly to organize local elections, ensuring a swift devolution of governance at the local level, is certain to achieve a better balance of power between the MPLA (which has ruled unopposed at all levels for 47 years) and the main Opposition party UNITA. Establishing directly-elected local governments will usher in a new era in which local decisions are made in the best interest of all in the community, and multi-party democracy has real meaning and impact.

Challenging Angola’s Election Result

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The official result of the Angolan elections gave victory to the MPLA with 51.17% of the total votes cast; UNITA coming second with 43.95%. UNITA reacted to the announcement by issuing a public statement that, until judgement is forthcoming in the legal challenges it submitted, the party would not accept the results given by the National Electoral Commission (the CNE) and would petition the Constitutional Court to freeze the CNE result pending judgement. UNITA’s statement makes three laudable points.

First: the party has chosen to follow legal and institutional procedures to press its case, in line with the stance of the United States and European Union, who praised the peaceful conduct of the elections and urged that any dispute be settled through due judicial process. The UNITA leadership has thus rejected calls by ‘Trump style’ militants in the party who wanted to mobilize their supporters to march on parliament and other institutions to overturn the official election result. Direct action could have led to an unforeseen escalation of violence and anarchy.

If UNITA can prove fraud, this would be an historic moment, an unprecedented paradigm, revealing the MPLA to be the most incompetent election-rigger in African history, organizing a disastrous defeat in the capital, Luanda, and almost certainly delivering the opposition party an easy victory next time around, in 2027.

Second, UNITA affirms that the party will recognize the election result once the respective challenges it submitted have been adjudicated. This puts the onus on the CNE to act quickly and openly to investigate the disputed tallies, which may or may not impact the overall result. Their findings may result in only marginal changes in the allocation of seats in the National Assembly, Angola’s parliament.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, UNITA has called for the result to be frozen while what might be called its “principal challenge” is adjudged. The basis of this “principal challenge” has not been revealed and so we cannot know what impact it might have on the final result.

Angola’s General Election Law, the Lei Orgânica das Eleições Gerais (LOEG), has provision for disputes of this kind. Article 136 applies to the tally, the Acta, specifying how the official result tally is determined, and how any doubts or challenges should be handled. Article 153 and those that follow, govern how to challenge irregularities found during the vote, individual counts, and the final total. It states that these challenges must be made at the time the irregularities are seen. This may preclude a general challenge which can only be admitted if proper challenges to each individual irregularity were made opportunely.

The challenge must be able to show relevant and legally-admissible evidence, such as a photocopy of the original tally from each mesa (voting area) of the polling station at which the irregularity in question occurred (Article 154). The burden of proof falls on UNITA which must be able to supply documentary evidence to support its allegations. Any challenge must first be put to the CNE for examination and determination and only after the CNE has presented its findings can there be an appeal to the Constitutional Court (see Articles 155, 156, 157) which has the power to suspend the process (Article 158). This means the law does not provide for the result to be frozen at this stage.

The first complaint must be registered at the polling station where the disputed record of the tally was produced. Secondly, the complainant must submit each specific dispute to the CNE. Only then, as a third step, can UNITA appeal to the Constitutional Court. As in any dispute the petitioner must supply adequate and legally-admissible proofs to have any chance of success.

Until and unless the claim reaches that third stage, when an appeal is lodged with the Constitutional Court, the election result – as announced – remains in force. The Constitutional Court’s role is to determine the validity of the CNE’s verdict on each of UNITA’s challenges. At this stage, it can only freeze the CNE verdict. Until the Constitutional Court delivers its judgement on the CNE verdict, the election result stands. Only if the Constitutional Court finds that the CNE verdict is flawed, can it order a recount.

To sum up: UNITA has challenged the result with the CNE which may, after deliberation, reject its challenge. UNITA would then appeal to the Constitutional Court to judge the CNE’s decision to reject UNITA’s claim. During this process only the CNE’s decision regarding the challenge is suspended, not the election result. However, should the Constitutional Court reject the CNE’s verdict on the UNITA challenge, then the Court has the power to suspend or annul the official result and order a recount. It is clearly of the utmost importance that this process be conducted with maximum efficiency and speed because it cannot over-run the legally-established deadline by which the new government must be sworn in. The law on elections (Art. 157) stipulates that any appeal must be submitted to the Constitutional Court within 72 hours of the National Electoral Commission’s decision on any challenge and the Constitutional Court then only has 72 hours to reach a decision (Art. 160), with a further 72 hours for a counter-claim. This dispute over the count totals ends with the Constitutional Court – its decision is final.

Justice Capture in Angola

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President Lourenço has weaponized the judicial system to mete out political retribution against his personal enemies, principally his predecessor’s family members and closest associates. The unequal application of justice gives every appearance of protection for some of the most notoriously corrupt public officials, in exchange for their allegiance.

A few days ago, Angola’s Criminal Investigation Service arrested a young man, Flávio Caiongo, over a TikTok video.

His crime? Calling our President Lourenço a “thief”.

His TikTok was critical of the poor rule that plagues Angola, and has left so many of my fellow Angolans hungry. As I stand here, the authorities are still hunting down the other two people who took part in it.

It’s ironic.

Twenty-three years ago, Angola’s then President, José Eduardo dos Santos, put me in jail for calling his régime “corrupt”.

When President Lourenço succeeded him in 2017, he promised change: an end to kleptocracy, respect for the rights of civil society, and to guarantee for freedom of speech.

Well, so much for the “war on corruption” that he defined as the hallmark of his first term of office! So much for freedom of expression!

What has happened since 2017, that has caused him to nix his commitment to fair and transparent rule? What can we learn from the gap between intention and outcome? I would point to three crucial issues: leadership, state-building, and the capacity to deliver.

President Lourenço talked the talk but did not walk the walk. In his first six months in office, he built a momentum for change that won him widespread public support, including my own. But he failed to inspire the necessary cohesion between institutions and the people to achieve his goals. His tentative engagement with civil society, in all its disparate forms, should have informed him that state-building required collaboration. Was he listening? Or just going through the motions of hearing other opinions? Where was the leadership to harness that public support to effect lasting change?

The Lourenço Administration surely needed to kickstart the transition with structural reform. The institutionalized corruption of the Dos Santos years had undermined state institutions and torn apart the social fabric. President Lourenço’s first mistake was a failure to build the capacity to deliver, thus exposing the vulnerabilities of a regime of patronage that was turning Angola into a failed state.

Corruption is complex and takes different forms across the globe, according to each country’s power and kinship structures. The usual remedies – sanctions, campaigns, elections, the use of the judiciary to prosecute the guilty and recover assets – are not necessarily effective. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all solution’.

In Angola, the existing system of patronage and reward promotes corruption. Take the scale of public sector salaries and benefits: it is a built-in, institutional mechanism for mass-producing thieves from the top down. For example, the official salary of the Angolan President, a man with the final say over a 37 billion US dollar annual state budget, is a mere 12 hundred dollars a month.

Is it any surprise then, that in the absence of structural reform, President Lourenço ended up weakening state institutions, notably the judiciary, and reinforcing the same conditions that created the kleptocracy? Let me explain.

In my capacity as the founder of a website that publishes investigative journalism, in the past I was routinely harassed and prosecuted for exposing government corruption and misdeeds. But after President Lourenço took office, I was summoned several times by the Office of Public Prosecution to share information, with promises that the authorities would follow up on these exposés. While this offered some relief to me personally, sadly the end result has been the same.

There is no separation of powers, so the Judiciary is not independent. Despite mounting evidence of corruption, the decision as to whether cases end up shelved, stalled or proceed to court hearings remains a political one. The powerful and well-connected continue to enjoy impunity. There is no palpable change, therefore, no justice.

Here’s just one example.

Last May, Judge Daniel Modesto – who heads the criminal chamber of the Supreme Court – secretly dismissed seven indictments against one of the most notoriously corrupt generals in the country, Higino Carneiro. Judge Modesto did this behind the backs of the plenary of the Supreme Court and without informing the appointed trial court judge.

Maka Angola revealed the internal battle: the outrage expressed by other Supreme Court judges, who described Judge Modesto’s dismissal of the Carneiro Case as illegal and demanded the issue be put before the Supreme Court plenary. However, their demand was simply ignored by Angola’s Chief Justice, Brigadier Joel Leonardo, a man repeatedly exposed for corrupt and tyrannical behaviour who remains, somehow, immune from any consequences of his actions. Instead of summoning the plenary to examine Judge Modesto’s action, Chief Justice Leonardo suspended the most outspoken critic, Supreme Court Judge Agostinho Santos, who is currently barred from Supreme Court premises over unfounded accusations of “non-compliance with the duty of courtesy”.

This farce, tragically, is only one example of how Angola’s judiciary has become an epicentre of corruption, openly encouraged by the Lourenço Administration. In defiance of the constitutional obligation of judicial impartiality, Presidential Decree 69/21 authorizes the Office of the Attorney General and the Courts to divide among themselves 10% of all recovered assets – a ‘reward’ for judicial seizure that amounts to a conflict of interest.

Furthermore, the government funds multi-million-dollar houses and apartments as a perk for the justices of the superior courts. Maka Angola reported in detail on one such case, ironically involving the official in charge of Angola’s Court of Audit – the Angolan equivalent of the United States Government’s Accountability Office (the GAO). Economist Exalgina Gâmboa not only benefited from two houses supplied to her by the Angolan government at the cost of seven million US dollars. She then went on to divert an extra four million dollars from the official Audit Court budget to equip her residence with luxury furnishings.

In effect, President Lourenço has weaponized the judicial system to mete out political retribution against his personal enemies, principally his predecessor’s family members and closest associates. The unequal application of justice gives every appearance of protection for some of the most notoriously corrupt public officials, in exchange for their allegiance. As the WHO’s lyric goes… “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss”.

What can be done to change this situation? Former enemies can become powerful allies. More than twenty years after the then superpowers conducted a proxy war in Angola, it is past time to end the divide-and-rule, winner-takes-all model of power inherited from decades of conflict. As the former US President Barack Obama said in Ghana in 2009: “Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”

* Full text prepared for the panel on Promoting Anti-Corruption Reform and Accountability of the U.S-Africa Leaders Summit: Civil Society Forum held at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington D.C, on December 13, 2022.

All the President’s Friends: Who Audits Angola’s Chief Auditor?

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Yet more evidence has reached Maka Angola that the Angolan President’s vow to end corruption has continued to falter. Maka has already revealed at length how Exalgina Gambôa, the head of the Court of Accounts of Angola’s national audit office, had embezzled four million dollars from the court’s organizational budget to purchase luxury furnishings for her home.

New information has come to light showing that the court cannot afford to send its accountants around the country to audit government spending in the provinces because their travel budget was spent on luxury flights for the three Gambôa offspring.

President João Lourenço’s promise to tackle Angola’s kleptocratic culture of corruption has stuttered for a while. His campaign has so far failed not just on account of his narrow focus on the fortunes of his predecessor’s children but due to his inability to call out officials close to the current leadership for their equally brazen excesses. Why, for example, has Exalgina Gambôa escaped punishment for the obscene misappropriation of millions of dollars’ worth of Angolan public funds to purchase luxury furnishings for her own family? Meanwhile, the State had already given her, as “gifts”, two lavish homes that cost the public coffers approximately eight million dollars. It’s inexplicable, and it only gets worse.

Maka is in possession of damning evidence from the Court of Accounts revealing that Exalgina Gambôa routinely authorizes payments for her three adult children to fly business class to and from the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. They don’t even attempt to hide what they are doing – on social media, one of her sons proudly boasts of the many benefits accruing from his mother’s long friendship with President João Lourenço. Benefits that apparently include free international travel for the children of Lourenco’s officials. When did the national audit office’s budget become the personal travel budget of the President’s friends?

The case of Exalgina Gambôa is key to understanding why Angola’s Justice system is incredibly dysfunctional. Safeguards against this kind of behaviour are codified in Angolan law. However, no adequate enforcement mechanisms are currently in place. As such, even when there is concrete proof of corrupt practices and the embezzlement of public funds, the concerned are able to continue acting with impunity. Without a system in place to ensure ethical behaviour by government officials, they will continue to conduct themselves as Mrs. Gambôa has.

The Court of Accounts is, or should be, the final guarantor of probity in public spending. Yet, Ms. Gambôa refuses to resign despite evidence continually emerging of her persistent infractions. Clearly, Mrs. Gambôa feels that her friendship with the Angolan President shields her from prosecution, no matter how much money she diverts for her family’s benefit. 

João Lourenço’s platform was predicated on eradicating corruption in Angola. He rightly noted how corruption’s toxic tentacles extended themselves across every level of Angola society, and he swore that any and everyone who had been on the take under his predecessor would feel the full weight of the justice system. Yet, into his second term, President Lourenço has yet to develop a strategy to remodel the Justice System to fit that purpose. It needed root and branch reforms to weed out all the incompetent and corrupt placeholders installed under the previous regime. Instead, he left in place the same corrupt officials. Who polices the police?

This lack of initiative has left the President increasingly isolated and dependent on the loyalty of a very restricted circle of family and friends, all of whom he has allowed to get on board the same old gravy train. This is not just a case of musical chairs in which the faces are different. Under President dos Santos, the most powerful got the biggest rewards, but at least there was a trickle-down of benefits to ensure compliance, loyalty, and silence. The difference now, apparently, is that only a favoured few are invited to share in the bounty resulting in disgruntled staff keen to shine a light on their unethical and criminal misdeeds.

Exalgina Gamboa was appointed as Chair of the Court of Accounts in 2018 and promptly became notorious for the arrogance with which this small-time economist began to exploit her position, dipping into the audit court’s operating budget for her own benefit.  Maka Angola  was soon tipped off on how she had blown over four million US dollars on luxury furniture not only for her official residence in the Malunga Condos in the suburb of Talatona but also for homes she was awarding to her adult children.

With evidence in the public domain, the president whose patronage put her in this position could have at least asked the Attorney General’s Office to investigate. Maka Angola handed over the evidence to the (soon-to-be-retired) Attorney General of the Republic, Hélder Pitta Groz, on October 14th, 2022.  As far as we can tell, no further action was taken there, although the National Assembly President, Carolina Cerqueira, did respond on November 7th to say that “she had taken note of the allegations” and had set in motion the legal proceedings for a full investigation.

ALL EXPENSES PAID

The lack of concrete action has simply given Mrs. Gambôa more time and opportunity to feather her nest.  

And like any mother hen, she ensures her chicks (and ‘grand-chicks’) are well looked after. Along with Hailé, Eliana and Edivaldo Cruz, the next generation is also being treated to luxury travel from Luanda to Lisbon, where a single one-way business class ticket typically costs $5,000 US dollars. None of the adult Gambôa children works at the Court of Accounts, but they have all secure well-paid jobs:  Exalgina’s eldest child, Hailé da Cruz, is on the board of UNITEL Money and before that was on the board of Banco Yetu, where the audit court has several accounts. Coincidentally, it’s through these accounts at Banco Yetu that the funds are diverted. 

Gambôa’s daughter, the architect Eliana da Cruz, is employed as a project manager for a public-private company, Imogestin, S.A. where her father, Rui Cruz, has been chairman of the board for the past 22 years. Meanwhile, the youngest son, Edivaldo Cruz, who used to be employed at Standard Bank Angola, now boasts on his Linkedin profile that he is “an entrepreneur, investor, consultant, blogger, conference speaker and father” – so why would he need his mother to buy airline tickets for him to take his family on holiday to Portugal? And yet it was the Court of Accounts that was invoiced for a Christmas holiday requiring an outbound business class flight from Luanda to Lisbon on December 19th, with the return on January 13th. And the Court of Accounts is also paying for his sister’s air travel (business class round trip between Luanda and Lisbon) departing on March 23rd, 2023, and returning on April 8th.

It’s no surprise then that they also feel entitled to special treatment at the airport, with Mrs. Gambôa ensuring that a request is made in good time to the Foreign Ministry’s Director-General of Protocol for her family to be admitted to the VIP “Protocol” Lounge. Mr. Edivaldo was authorized to use the VIP lounge on May 3rd en route to Lisbon and then again in July for another trip to the Portuguese capital, where he was followed two days later by his sister Hailé Cruz. This is just a sample of the regular round-robin trips – we have evidence going back to 2019 when the head of the Court of Accounts authorized four airfares to take her daughter to Portugal for Christmas. Exalgina herself was seated alone in the first-class cabin while her daughter Eliana had to make do with business class. The other two tickets were for her two assistants seated at the back in economy. They were apparently supposed to be bodyguards but were just there to carry their Christmas shopping.

ONE LAW FOR THE PEOPLE, ANOTHER FOR THE PRESIDENT’S FRIENDS?

Angola’s ruling party has always ensured that there is a legal framework for the perquisites attached to public service, but nowhere does it state that rewards should be extended to anyone other than an accompanying spouse, and only then for an official trip overseas travelling on the national airline. As our legal adviser, Rui Verde, notes: “The law expressly refers to spouses, and in so doing excludes anyone else. If it were to contemplate other family members, it would use a different form of words such as ‘spouses and children’ or some such phrase.”  In this case, not only are the trips for non-spouses, but they have nothing to do with official business. This is clearly unlawful.

Under the Angolan criminal code, the benefits doled out to Exalgina Gambôa’s adult children constituted several felonies, including but not limited to peculation, trafficking of influences, and a failure to declare financial benefits in kind. And, as Rui Verde notes, the fact that the actions were repeated year after year compounds the offence. It seems that president Lourenço has given up on fighting corruption. He has been unable to surmount the weakness of his lame-duck presidency, as many of the senior members of his own ruling party abandon him. Then perhaps he should take a leaf out of his predecessor’s guidebook and make it possible for ALL government officials to pass on perks to their immediate families – or even beyond. At the very least, he should make sure that the armed forces’ top brass and their families enjoy similar or better perks. No doubt that would silence some of his harshest critics: as the saying goes, “keep your friends close – and your enemies even closer.”


President Lourenço: Where Does Angola Go from Here? 

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The foundation of Angola’s future prosperity rests upon four pillars. Firstly, empowering and visionary leadership at the executive level, capable of bridging the numerous divides in Angola’s society to unite the country’s citizenry and institutions to work towards common prosperity. Secondly, the presence of strong legal institutions capable of upholding the rule of law. Thirdly, the economic emancipation and continued preservation of the populace’s economic freedom. Lastly, a well-crafted and well-defined blueprint to ensure access to freedom and justice for all.  

The foundation of any prosperous nation-state is the presence of robust and fair leadership in its government combined with strong and well-functioning institutions. The aforementioned qualities give rise to a nation that is governed democratically and equitably, with branches of government working in symphony to uphold the rule of law and achieve common prosperity. In such a nation, all branches of government work together to foster a legal climate capable of promoting and effecting justice while simultaneously providing an economic environment capable of producing and sustaining high-quality educational, healthcare, and physical infrastructure, all unnegotiable preconditions for sustainable long-term growth.

Angola is a nation yearning for stability and unity. It has now been 21 years since the end of Angola’s bloody 27-year civil war, yet the average Angolan has seen no improvement in their quality of life in spite of the country’s abundance of natural resources and favorable demographic composition. Angola’s stagnation and failure to realize the widely touted ‘peace dividend’ – the economic prosperity arising from the war’s end – is the result of 38 years of blatant mismanagement under the corrupt leadership of the late ex-President José Eduardo dos Santos. The same conclusion is evident to not just Maka Angola but to all observers of Angolan affairs, a country unable to fulfill its potential due to decades of corruption-induced mismanagement.

João Lourenço’s inauguration as President in 2017 had many Angolans dreaming again. Upon his election, President Lourenço promised to usher in a new era founded upon radical change and reform, whereby his government was to experience the separation of powers and be held accountable by checks and balances. If we took his promises at face value, Lourenço’s reforms contemplated fostering stronger institutions, including an independent judicial branch capable of delivering justice and serving as a counterweight to the executive. This would effectively end the extensive looting of the state treasury practiced by public servants, enabling state resources to be allocated effectively to solve Angola’s most pressing issues. However, as the honeymoon phase ended, it became clear to all: Lourenço’s administration would be much like his predecessor’s.

In last year’s elections Lourenço managed to attain a pyrrhic victory with the MPLA’s share of the vote falling precipitously from 61% to 51% since the 2017 elections, principally due to widespread popular discontent over the state of affairs during his first term in power. Lourenço had again campaigned on the promise of necessary institutional reforms and increased spending on critical infrastructure. Instead, nearly a year later, Lourenço has failed to reinforce any of the aforementioned four pillars and his leadership has plunged Angola into further despair.

From my observation, the collapse of political morality has given rise to a mentality in which the ‘father of the nation’ is no better than a petty robber baron. Angolans have lost the capacity to distinguish between the nation state and its government.  Angolans have forgotten that a nation’s economic health relies upon the separation of powers and the maintenance of impermeable boundaries between them.  The distinctions between due rights (whether individual or collective) and the duties, responsibilities and obligations that are required in exchange, have been blurred or erased in total.  There seems to be no consensus that there should be firm barriers to prevent the people in charge of state institutions funded by the public funds from lining their own pockets. 

Successive leaders have failed to create the rules that would promote and enforce ethical and honourable governance.  This is not due to the absence of collective moral values in Angolan society.  Decades of trauma have deprived Angolans of their individual agency making it appear that only their supreme leader, the all-powerful President, was in a position to put such a system into effect.  Yet, we know this is not the case, there are tried-and-true systems and methods that can provide safeguards against the excesses and crimes of public servants.

I would argue that, given the vacuum to date, it is up to Civil Society to define the codes of conduct our country and people deserve.  We can no longer leave it to the man at the top. 

João Lourenço’s failure to put an end to corruption and dishonesty has resulted in a power vacuum.  In just five years from being hailed as Angola’s saviour, this Messiah is now derided as a Judas.

It’s fair to note that João Lourenço began his presidential term by creating some political overtures, announcing both anti-corruption measures and free-market economic reforms but between then and now he has lost his way.  We might say that his first mistake was not to understand that he himself needed to change and grow, given that he was moulded and groomed by his corrupt predecessor, Dos Santos. Instead, and without sufficient support, he stumbled into following the same path, having inherited both the modus operandi and the same second-rate people who had served Dos Santos. 

And in the face of any opposition or criticism, his response is just the same:  repression.  Just look at the recent detention of four young activists in Huambo province, deprived of their freedom without charge on the same old, worn-out, justification of “incitement to rebellion” that Dos Santos’s administration used in the infamous case of the Bookstore 15 (and 2 others) who were rounded up and roughed up and detained without trial, for studying a treatise on non-violent opposition.  We can all recall just how well that turned out – it made a laughing stock of the late President Dos Santos, and of the judicial system and toadying magistrates who acted injudiciously to try to silence his critics.  The result was in inverse proportion to the intention: not silence but world-wide amplification of the very criticisms he wished to conceal.  

The ‘Huambo Four’ were not organizing a street protest or any kind of civic or political direct action.   Their ‘crime’ was to mourn publicly the six people killed during a previous demonstration on June 5, 2023 by people complaining about the 80% jump in gasoline (petrol) prices at the pumps.

So much for the basic principle of democratic government “by the people, of the people, for the people” (in the words attributed to Abraham Lincoln).  The idea of a government that serves the people, was never the guiding principle of administration in Angola (neither during the colonial era nor since).   The post-colonial, post-war generations expect better, but Lourenço seems incapable of delivering, or lacks any interest in doing so.  Instead, like his predecessors, President Lourenço is resorting to a display of petulant arrogance and responds to any challenge with a kneejerk use of force to repress and silence the critics, rather than address the behaviours that give rise to the criticism.

DISMANTLING THE RULE OF LAW

A clear example of Lourenço’s regressive and anti-democratic behaviour can be seen in his actions, seemingly aimed at eroding Angola’s already fledgling rule of law. Such behavior could not be better typified than by Lourenço’s decision to appoint a convicted felon to the position Supreme Court justice. On June 16, 2023, Lourenço decided to confirm the Superior Council of the Judiciary’s nomination of Mr. Carlos Alberto Cavuquila, a former municipal administrator found guilty of embezzling state funds, thereby appointing Mr. Cavuquila to the Supreme Court. The appointment arrived in spite of Angola’s Court of Auditors unanimous rejection of Mr. Cavuquila’s nomination on May 8, 2023, on the grounds that he had been found guilty by the same court of embezzlement from the Angolan Treasury and therefore ordered to pay a sum of 29 million kwanzas back to the government. To add insult to injury, Mr. Cavuquila was appointed while undergoing trial for a separate case of embezzlement where Mr. Cavuquila was adjudged to have diverted 1.5 billion kwanzas.

As I wrote in Maka Angola at the time, “never in the worst of banana republics has a felon subsequently been nominated as a suitable person fit to select future judges to serve in the very court that convicted him”.  Has there ever been a similar case in which a country’s President has brazenly chosen a person convicted of embezzling state funds to a position as a judge in one of the high courts of the land?  Has President Lourenço lost his mind altogether?  Or does he have a covert hostile agenda to undermine the Rule of Law in Angola by turning legal institutions into havens for crooks?

Because this is not a single aberration but part of a pattern.  The President also chose to overlook and condone the much-criticised behaviour of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, Joel Leonardo, despite numerous documented allegations of corruption and detailed reports of Judge Leonardo’s many offences. For some as yet unknown reason, the President has deemed him worthy of protection at all costs.

The President is becoming more open about how he views his role in ‘supervising’ the operations of the courts in Angola.  In a speech on June 19, during the installation of new justices at the Audit Court, Lourenço made it crystal clear that he intends not just to interfere but to exert control over, the judicial system.  

AN ECONOMY FOR THE MANY?

Economic development depends on confidence in the rule of law to protect individual interests. Without legal protections, why should international investors be attracted to do business in Angola?  From independence, Angola’s economy was centralized, run initially on Marxist-Leninist principles.  All means of production were state-owned and controlled by the one-party state.  Privatisation was a corollary of the introduction of multi-party democracy, but it was almost immediately subverted into a means of rewarding the key individuals in the ruling party.   Illicit enrichment became the norm by which President Dos Santos maintained loyalty while at the same time ensuring complicity.  Lourenço promised to dismantle the apparatus but in practice only changed the faces of the beneficiaries. 

This means that there is no guarantee of effective economic freedom in Angola.  The idea that any individual or corporation can freely enter and leave the market at will, found companies, obtain credit, and engage in all the usual activities of business, with the confidence that the letter of the law will be applied is an illusion if those appointed to pass judgement are the President’s Yes Men.   A complicit and biased judiciary loyal to the president, centralized control of the apparatus of state and key economic entities though the insertion of presidential allies, are bound to inhibit entrepreneurial activity as there is no guarantee that any added value created will revert to the investor.   Without a truly private sector, capable of creating surplus product for export, reinvesting profit into job creation and the expansion of the means of production, Angola cannot expect any wealth creation for the benefit of the population as a whole. Once again, a corrupt elite centred around the family, friends, allies and associates of the President will derive the short-term benefits.

The current government of Angola failed to listen to the overwhelming advice of economists at home and abroad to diversify, did not come up with a rational developmental programme or even take advantage of the brief window of respite given by rising prices in the barrel of oil.  Instead, the country is at the mercy of fast-rising unemployment and inflation, factors that will fuel instability and discontent. 

CONCLUSIONS

Each mistake by the current President and the ruling MPLA party in government, for 48 consecutive years, compounds the ones that have gone before. It further erodes the confidence that this leader and this party are fit to govern.  Yet they show no willingness to create the conditions for a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.   The space required for freedom of expression, for an open and confident exchange of ideas that might offer alternatives is being closed and this in turn creates barriers for meaningful participation by civil society groups. 

In short, Angola is being held back by a retrogressive cohort in government who have failed to make a successful or full transition from a centrally-planned economy to a free market economy.  Instead of proceeding with the separation of powers to attract investment and empower citizens by offering unequivocal guarantees that rights and freedoms under the law will be upheld by an impartial judiciary or that the country’s wealth will be directed to investing in infrastructure, intermodal transport links, education and health, all the evidence suggests President Lourenço’s efforts are aimed at evading any attempt to hold his administration accountable. 

Felon Appointed as Supreme Court Justice of Angola

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The unprecedented appointment of a convicted criminal to the Angolan Supreme Court – in blatant contravention of the law – has sparked a formal complaint to the country’s Attorney-General to trigger a full investigation into the judicial appointment process as well as any improper interference by President João Lourenço.

The Honorable Attorney General of the Republic of Angola

Subject: Submission concerning the illegal acts perpetrated by the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the President of the Republic of Angola

Rafael Marques de Morais, an Angolan national citizen bearer of ID Number [redacted], residing at [redacted], Luanda, based on the following facts, informs the Attorney General of the Republic that the appointment of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila as Justice of the Supreme Court is illegal, a threat to the constitutional order and rule of law, and, therefore, should be annulled. Cavuquila’s appointment is in clear violation of Article 41, paragraph 1, c) of the Statute of Judicial Magistrates (Law No. 7/94).

The appointment of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila as Justice of the Supreme Court

  1. On June 14, 2023, per Resolution 7/23, the Plenary of the Superior Council of the Judiciary selected Carlos Alberto Cavuquila to fill the vacancy of Supreme Court Justice.
  2. On June 16, 2023, the Presidency of the Republic confirmed the Superior Council of the Judiciary’s selection of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila as a Supreme Court Justice.
  3. On  June 19, 2023, the President of the Republic swore in Carlos Alberto Cavuquila as Supreme Court Justice.

The illegality of the appointment Under Article 180, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, candidates for Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the Superior Council of the Judiciary following a competitive selection process chosen from a pool of judges, public prosecutors, and jurists of merit. Supreme Court Justice nominees are then appointed by the President of the Republic.

  1. Responsibility for the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice is thereby shared between two constitutional bodies: the President of the Republic (PR) and the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSMJ in the Portuguese acronym). Neither has sole power to appoint a judge alone, there must be due process and consensus, and candidates must fulfil legal, moral, and ethical requirements.
  2. The PR was under no obligation to confirm the appointment of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila, even though he had been nominated by the CSMJ. As guarantor of the Constitution and the Law (per Article 108(5) of the Constitution), the PR must always ensure his acts are in compliance with the Constitution and the Law, when considering recommendations from another body.
  3.  Legal Compliance was not observed in the nomination and appointment of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila since neither the CSMJ nor the PR respected the Statute of Judicial Magistrates

Violation of Article 40(1)(c) of the Statute of Judicial Magistrates

  1. Section 40(1)(c) of the Statute of Judicial Magistrates is clear in determining that moral and civic fitness is a requirement for admission to the judiciary. This provision applies to all Judicial Magistrates, be they of first instance or of the Supreme Court.
  2. The legally enshrined moral and civic fitness is also enshrined in the Bangalore principles for judicial conduct (the universal basis for the behaviour of judges). Good character and the appearance of integrity are essential to the performance of all the activities of a judge.
  3. Accordingly, in order to be appointed by the President of the Republic as a Justice of the Supreme Court, Carlos Cavuquila should be of moral and civic fitness.
  4. The test to assess whether a candidate would be suitable for this position compromises the person’s ability to discharge his or her judicial responsibilities with integrity, impartiality, independence, and competence, or is likely to create — in the mind of a reasonable observer — a perception that his or her ability to discharge judicial responsibilities will thereby be impaired.
  5. It is clear that Carlos Alberto Cavuquila does not pass this test of civic and moral fitness in the eyes of the public or of a reasonable observer.
  6. A person, however many positive qualities he may have, who is faced with two judicial processes for misappropriation of public funds naturally creates a public perception of unfitness. First, on May 8, 2023, thePlenary Court of Auditors revealed that Cavuquila had been sentenced by that court to pay back 29 million kwanzas into the state coffers, the execution of which is pending before the Provincial Court of Luanda. Therefore, the Plenary held that Cavuquila was unfit to be selected as a new judge on the Superior Council of the Judiciary.  The  second case is currently before the Second Chamber of the Court of Auditors, where the prosecutor accuses Cavuquila of embezzling 1.519 billion kwanzas and argues that he must return the money to the state and face sanctions.
  7. Due to these two court cases, there is no doubt that Carlos Alberto Cavuquila does not meet the legal requirements to be a Supreme Court Justice, and therefore his appointment is illegal.

Role of the Attorney General’s Office

  1. It is the constitutional obligation of the Attorney General’s Office to defend democratic legality (Article 186 of the Constitution). Therefore, in the face of the violation referred to in a case of high constitutional relevance, it is the duty of the Attorney General to act through the appropriate jurisdictional means and annul the illegal acts.
  2. It is in this context that we present this petition, which constitutes civic and democratic participation. It is up to the Attorney General’s Office to choose the appropriate mechanism to proceed with the annulment.

Conclusions

  1. The appointment of Carlos Alberto Cavuquila is illegal as he does not comply with the requirement of Article 40, paragraph 1 c) of the Statute of Judicial Magistrates, which requires civic and moral integrity.
  2. The said appointment should be annulled due to illegality.
  3. The Office of the Attorney General, as the constitutional defender of the democratic legal order, must initiate effective jurisdictional measures to restore the legal order, and to hold accountable those who violated the rule of law.

The future of the rule of law and democracy in Angola lies in legality and the efficient and coordinated operation of the judiciary.

With thanks for your consideration.

Yours sincerely,

Rafael Marques de Morais

Luanda, July 10 2023





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