Maputo, 16 Sep (AIM) – The General Commander of the Mozambican police force (PRM), Bernardino Rafael, has rejected accusations that police agents have been involved in attempts to assassinate opposition mayoral candidates in the run-up to the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October.
On Monday, Manuel de Araujo, the mayor of the central Mozambican city of Quelimane, and a prominent member of the main opposition party, Renamo, claimed that members of the police were involved in an abortive attempt to assassinate him. This claim follows a similar one presented two weeks ago by the Mayor of Nampula, Paulo Vahanle, also a member of Renamo. Both are standing for a further term of office in the October elections.
According to Bernardino Rafael, who was speaking on Friday at the Maputo provincial command, during a parade that served as a symbolic presentation of new traffic police personnel, who will join the police ranks throughout the country, “these accusations are unfounded and reveal a lack of electoral manifesto on the part of the parties in question.”
“Leave those politicians who want to turn the police into their opposition”, he declared. “They don’t have the right manifesto, they turn themselves into victims, saying that the police want to murder them. There are politicians who, in order to be applauded, need to spend their entire dictionary badmouthing the police”.
The police, he said, will always exist, “even when you are president. There’s no way to extinguish the police, because Mozambicans need it.”
“We don’t want to murder anyone”, Rafael insisted, adding that the political parties are only harming themselves.
“Unfortunately, when a party doesn’t realize that the policeman is also a voter, that politician is lost”, he said. “With so many policemen, when you offend one, how many votes have you lost? These are politicians who have no vision for themselves, that’s like cutting off your own leg. We’re just public security officers, but we’re also voters”.
According to Rafael, the police force is prepared to guarantee public order and tranquility throughout the elections, particularly during the official election campaign that will begin on 26 September.
“Colleagues, we are going to fulfil our plans, our agenda of protecting the motorcades or the candidates at rallies”, he said. “The politicians are going to have to promote their views. We want the politicians to approach us, tell us their programmes and we’ll go and meet them”.
(AIM)
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