appeal to criminal justice, filing charges of criminal accountability. UNITA was of the opinion that the country faced a criminal conspiracy against the rule of law, planned and implemented at the highest level of the Government under the leadership of José Eduardo dos Santos. Despite all this struggle that continues until the present day, UNITA decided that its more than 30 elected members would take up their seats in parliament, having justified this apparent contradiction by claiming that its new strategy provided for “fighting the dictatorship from within the official institutions.” As for the big political news, the first general elections of 31 August 2012 saw the emergence of a new party formation, the Convergência Ampla de Salvação de Angola – Coligação Eleitoral (CASA-CE - the Broad Congregation for the Salvation of Angola – Electoral Coalition. The CASA-CE, headed by prominent UNITA dissident, Abel Chivukuvuku, by winning 8 seats in Parliament became the third most important political force in the country, with a distinct and more enticing performance from the point of view of those who think that the opposition in Angola was in need of this breath of fresh air. 0HGLD With the holding of the first general elections of 31 August, the Angolan media in 2012 faced another important test of its credibility, with results that were far from deserving of consensus, taking into account the existence of widely divergent and even contradictory assessments. According to an assessment by the president of the National Media Council (CNCS), “what stood out, however, from these assessments were the poor grades accorded to the performance of the public media for their bias and lack of impartiality, as captured in all the reports drafted by national and foreign election monitoring bodies.” As was the case - and once again - the powerful state media - especially the National Radio (RNA), Public Television (TPA) and the Jornal de Angola - openly campaigned in favour of the ruling party, in this way adding one more highly contentious factor in the electoral process. The year 2012 came and went without the promised legislative package for the media being approved, even after having gone to the trouble of holding public hearings. For its part, the Catholic Church hopes that 2012 was the last 6R7KLVLV'HPRFUDF\"