On May 28, 2022, at the Embassy of the Republic of Angola in Japan, a meeting convened by H.E. Rui Orlando Xavier, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Angola in Japan, accompanied by Mrs. Maria de Fátima Lima Xavier was heled with the Angolan community residing in Japan, with the purpose of transmitting information related to the elections and electoral process in Angola.
H.E. Ambassador emphasized that with the recent inauguration of the new headquarters of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and National Scrutiny Center, by the President of the Republic, H.E. João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço, on May 26 of this year, constitutes further progress on improvement to the democracy in Angola.
He highlighted that for the first time the Angolan Government has decreed to conduct of expatriate voting to citizens aged 18 and over with active electoral capacity, as stipulated in the Constitution of the Republic of Angola.
From this perspective, he stated that the Diplomatic and Consular Missions, which presented the highest numbers of citizens with consular registration, were contemplated with Official Electoral Registration. According to the Ministry of Territory Administration and State Reform (MAT), more than 18,000 thousand citizens were registered, in twelve selected countries, namely:
Africa: DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa.
Europe: Great Britain, Portugal, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
America: Brazil.
Asia and Oceania: No country selected.
Regarding Asia and Oceania where Japan is included, besides being the continent with the smallest number of citizens, it is the place where the first cases of COVID-19 were registered and where strict border measures were implemented even to the point of closing border to non-residents.
Added to this fact, there were other reasons of a technical matter, which made it impossible for the technical team made up of officials from the Ministry of Territorial Administration and State Reform (MAT), Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (MINJUSDH) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MIREX), to travel to various countries to install the technical system, the reason why the Government had to make a selection of countries considering rationalizing costs, technical and human resources and reduction of the number of the registered citizens.
H.E. Ambassador stated that since this will be the first experience of expatriate voting, it is predictable that there would be some unforeseen events, and he expressed that hopefully that the situation would be different and better in the 2027 election.
He also informed that the Government is creating all the conditions for the process of the election in a free, orderly, and transparent way, for which reason, he exhorted the importance of patriotism, regardless of where they live and each one can and should give their contribution to the development of their motherland.
EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF ANGOLA IN JAPAN, Tokyo, June 03, 2022.
*Unofficial translation
