Luanda – The Plenary of National Assembly (AN) rejected Thursday the request from the Parliamentary group of the opposition UNITA party, which wanted a protest vote “to the acts committed against the class of journalists”.
This was during the 2nd Extraordinary Plenary Meeting of the 1st Legislative Session of the V Legislature of the National Assembly.
Rui Falcão, MP with the ruling MPLA party, said that his Parliamentary group voted against the document (request) due to the opposition’s intention to taking political advantage of the situations linked to the class of journalists.
He noted that his party is in solidarity with the victims of all the crimes that occur daily in the country, for whom, if the opposition wanted to have a serious debate on the subject, it should not do so in a point prior to the agenda, but take the issue to the meeting of Parliamentary leaders to register as a point and discuss everything.
“We do not engage in this type of behaviour that only aims to take political advantage of circumstances, if we want to debate journalism we will discuss it in a deep, serious way and draw conclusions. We are open to any type of debate, but not to political hypocrisy”, he stressed.
In contrast, the MP Albertina Navita Ngolo, from UNITA, voiced outraged by the fact that the MPLA Parliamentary group had voted against the request for a protest vote, as she said, to the acts committed against the journalistic class.
“We have been insisting on this protest vote since the previous plenary, because we believe that we are representatives of the people in the National Assembly, which should not be silent about the acts committed against the journalistic class, which takes the work of Parliament to all houses and to the world”, he pointed out.
According to the deputy, the National Assembly needs to send a message of comfort and solidarity to the journalistic class.
Source: Angola Press News Agency