Maputo, 26 Jan (AIM) – Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, will not announce its candidate for this year’s presidential election until April.
The Renamo National Political Commission met in Maputo on Thursday night, and announced that a meeting of the party’s National Council will be held in the second fortnight of April.
At a press conference after the meeting, the Political Commission spokesperson, Alfredo Magumisse, said nothing about the agenda of the National Council meeting, nor where it will be held.
He merely announced that the Political Commission has set up working groups to prepare the National Council meeting, and has instructed the General Secretariat of the party to provide the necessary logistical conditions.
However, according to Friday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, the Council will announce the name of the Renamo candidate for the presidential election scheduled for 9 October.
This seems to mean that, in violation of the Renamo statutes, there will be no Renamo Congress this year.
The current Renamo leader, Ossufo Momade, was elected president of the party at a Congress held in January 2019. That Congress elected the other leading bodies of the party, and their term of office expired on 17 January this year.
There have been insistent demands inside Renamo for the party to abide by democratic norms and hold a Congress. Instead, decisions which ought to be taken by a Congress, have been placed in the hands of the National Council.
To date, four candidates for the Renamo presidency have declared their willingness to stand – and it is assumed that whoever becomes the president of the party will also be its candidate in October.
The supposedly “natural” candidate is Momade himself – so much so that the party’s national spokesperson, Jose Manteigas, declared on 3 January that Momade would be the Renamo candidate – though he was cautious enough to add that the decision would have to be ratified by a Congress.
The main alternative to Momade is Venancio Mondlane, the Renamo candidate for mayor of Maputo in the recent municipal elections. Mondlane has been the main face of Renamo in the campaign against the municipal election results, widely regarded as fraudulent.
Two men who stood against Momade in the 2019 Congress have said they will do so again. One of them, Elias Dhlakama, is the younger brother of the late Afonso Dhlakama, who led Renamo from 1979 until his death in 2018. He came second in 2019, with 229 votes to 410 for Momade.
Former Renamo parliamentarian Juliano Picardo also stood in 2019, but only picked up five votes.
The Mayor of the central city of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo, has also suggested he might stand for the Renamo leadership – but he will certainly not compete against Mondlane.
This means that Renamo will not announce its candidate until several weeks after the ruling Frelimo Party has announced who it is choosing to succeed Filipe Nyusi as President.
The Frelimo candidate will be decided at a meeting of the party’s Central Committee, due to be held in early March.
(AIM)
Pf/ (512)
