Respect the Presidency: Catholic Bishops in Angola on Proposal to Oust President

Luanda, 29 August, 2023 / 6:03 PM

Catholic Bishops in Angola are calling for respect of the Presidency in the Southern African nation amid a proposal to oust the country’s President from power. 

In a Monday, August 28 press conference at the end of the Second Ordinary Plenary Assembly of the Bishops' Conference of Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe (CEAST), the Spokesperson of the two-nation Conference weighed in on the ouster proposal that Angola’s second-largest political party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), made earlier August. 

UNITA has sought to prosecute and remove the Angolan President for allegedly “subverting the democratic process in the country and consolidating an authoritarian regime that undermines peace,” Medafrica Times reported August 6.

“We don't aim to reach political power, so this is an issue that is entirely the responsibility of the political parties in their natural dispute that they must carry out within the scenario in which they are involved; so, it's not part of our concern,” Bishop Belmiro Cuica Chissengueti of Cabinda Diocese said.

Bishop Chissengueti added, “Regardless of who is governing the country, and in this case, it is President João Lourenço, we as citizens owe him respect as a high entity of the state, but he is also under our scrutiny.”

“We have the right to citizenship, which allows us to make observations for the best management of what belongs to all of us,” the Angolan-born member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans/Holy Ghost Fathers/CSSp.) said.

He further said that “the direct political issues there do not concern our functioning or our tasks.”

According to the UNITA leader, Adalberto Costa Júnior, the move to oust Angola’s President is “a just tribute to the founder.”

“What we are doing is nothing more than looking at the laws and using the country we have. They are trying to sell the idea that the dismissal process is war, the dismissal process is instability; this is fear talking, it is the lack of democracy talking, it is the lack of preparation talking”, the UNITA President has been quoted as saying, justifying the proposal to oust President Lourenço from power.

João Vissesse contributed in the writing of this article