Dr. Benjamim Fausto Paiva, a lawyer and long-term member of the Angolan government, has been elected vice president of the country's National Council.
Dr. Benjamim Fausto Paiva, a lawyer and long-term member of the Angolan government, has been elected vice president of the country’s National Council, its 220-seat legislature. Fifty-year-old Paiva, the son of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, attended Bongo Adventist theological seminary in Huambo and received a pastoral diploma before going on to study law.
Paiva serves as a church elder at the central Adventist Church in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Believing that Saturday, or Sabbath, is the Biblical day of rest, Paiva has a longstanding policy of refusing to participate in the business of politics on that day.
Angola, located in southwestern Africa, has been torn by civil war since gaining its independence from Portugal in 1975. The Adventist Church in Angola, which has some 200,000 members, operates a hospital, publishing house, and seminary in the city of Huambo.
