UNITA's presidential candidate, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, this Friday contested the numbers released by the Angolan National Electoral Commission (CNE) and admitted that he does not recognize MPLA's victory in the elections.

"There is not the slightest doubt that the MPLA [Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola] did not win the elections of the 24th," said the president of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Adalberto Costa Júnior, speaking to journalists at the party's base in Luanda.

"The MPLA did not win the elections, so UNITA does not recognize the provisional results of the CNE," he added.

In his speech, referring to a "CNE mess" in the counting of the votes, Adalberto Costa Júnior pointed out three constituencies where UNITA, according to the party's accounts, had at least three more mandates.

The national leadership of UNITA challenges the CNE to, in the name of truth, accept the structuring of a commission with international participation to make a comparison of the synthesis minutes in the possession of the CNE with the synthesis minutes in the possession of the political parties," said Adalberto Costa Júnior, quoted by Sic Notícias.

On the eve of a weekend that already has anti-government demonstrations called in the social networks, Adalberto Costa Júnior, who spoke flanked by Abel Chivukuvuku (vice-presidential candidate) and Filomeno Vieira Lopes (leader of the Democratic Bloc), insisted on the institutional way to solve the impasse.

"We appeal to all Angolan men and women to remain calm, serene and confident in the UNITA leadership, in the hope that, by the strength of your vote, we will achieve the longed-for alternation," he said.

Costa Júnior pointed out "brutal discrepancies" of the mandates attributed by the CNE to UNITA, taking into account "the parallel scrutiny based on the synthesis minutes" in the party's possession and that he said had been "legally received by the delegates of the list" of UNITA.

And he gave the example of the provincial circle of Luanda, where UNITA claims to have 99.9% of the minutes (more than what the CNE shows on the 'site'), the party claims to have had 187 thousand more votes, which corresponds to 70% of the votes and not the official 62%, which gives them, according to their accounts, one more mandate.

According to UNITA's count from the summary minutes, the party claims more mandates at least in Moxico and Kwanza-Sul, with the latter province claiming 78,000 more votes were allocated to the MPLA, an "abusive and illegal vote.

"Yesterday, August 26, 48 hours after the elections, curiously, people were still voting in Moxico," he said, indicating two of the province's assemblies.

In his campaign, Adalberto Costa Júnior saw "a country that has degraded profoundly as a consequence of bad governance, ambition, and insensitivity of those who administer public affairs" and recalled the attacks on the UNITA leadership and the "challenges that this party-state would pose on the path of the movement for change.

In his speech, the leader of the 'black rooster' party thanked the voters for their participation: "UNITA and its partners in the movement for change deeply thank the Angolans for the responsible, civic and democratic way in which they responded to the call for change and went to the polling stations.

According to data released by the CNE, when 97.03% of the votes were scrutinized in the elections held last Wednesday, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA, in power since 1975) obtained 3,162,801 votes, one million fewer ballots scrutinized than in 2017, when it obtained 4,115,302 votes.

UNITA, on the other hand, registered a big rise, electing deputies in 17 of the 18 provinces and obtaining a historic victory in Luanda, the country's largest province, garnering 2,727,885 votes so far, while in 2017 it obtained 1,800,860 favorable ballots.