Malanje — The culture department head of Malanje, Sebastião Muzombo, on Tuesday expressed his dissatisfaction with the position achieved by singers of this province at the popular music contest named "Variante 2008", held last Saturday in this city.

Speaking to ANGOP, on the fringes of the referred song contest, the official said he is disappointed about the fact that the two contestants of Malanje, being the province that hosted the event, did not even end up in the third position.

"There was an acceptable competitive level among the contestants, but it is a pity that Malanje did not event achieve the third place", he regretted.

The official said he thinks the reason for that is because the two contestants for Malanje Province did not have enough time of rehearsal.

Sebastião Muzombo explained that the province does not have bands that could help the singers with rehearsals, so, although the two have enough talent they did not perform well.

He stressed that the music styles and lyrics presented by the two Malanje contestants were good, but the one day of rehearsal they had was not enough to have them prepared for such an important and national competition.

In this 16th edition of Variante2008 music contest, the northern province of Malanje was represented by the singers Pedro Gunza "Petrof" and Luísa Damião.

The competition was won by the contestant from Cabinda Province, Solange Nery, with 142 points, followed by Carlos Daniel "Cidy", from Kuanza Sul Province with 141 points and Avelina Mundombe from Huambo Province with 130 points.