
Venâncio Mondlane, foto arquivo
Maputo, 14 Apr (AIM) – Venancio Mondlane, the candidate of Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, for mayor of Maputo in last year’s municipal elections, has accused the Renamo leadership of trying to exclude him from the race to become the party’s next leader.
The President of Renamo will be elected at a party congress due to be held in mid-May. But before that election, the Renamo National Council, which meets in Maputo on Sunday, must approve a profile for candidates. Only those who fit the profile will be allowed to stand as candidates to succeed Ossufo Momade as party leader.
In an open letter to members of the National Council, cited by the independent daily “O Pais”, Mondlane complains that the profile is being rigged to exclude him.
The Renamo Political Commission has drawn up a draft profile that will be submitted to the full National Council. Among the requirements in that profile is that any candidate for the Presidency of Renamo must have been a member of the party for at least 15 years.
This immediately excludes Mondlane, since he only joined Renamo in 2018. Previously he was a prominent member of the second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
Mondlane added that the profile drawn up by the Political Commission does not mention any of the posts he has held within Renamo. The Commission’s profile was, in particular, quite unconcerned about young people.
Instead, he wrote, it wanted “a Renamo divorced from youth, insensitive to social and historical evolution, and which rejects the last words of the party’s historic leader (Afonso Dhlakama) when he said that in future Renamo should be led by young people”.
Mondlane also accused the leadership of harassing and even torturing Renamo members who question the direction the party has been taking.
The abuses, he wrote, include “brutal physical assault, kidnapping, private imprisonment and torture, such as happened in Mozambique Island and Nacala, and mass dismissals of all who supposedly did not align with the leadership”.
Momade was elected leader of Renamo at a Congress held in January 2019, and has declared his intention to run for a second term of office. Mondlane was the first prominent figure to announce his intention to stand against Momade.
Two other contestants for the Renamo presidency are Elias Dhlakama, the brother of Afonso Dhlakama, and former parliamentary deputy, Juliano Picardo, who is a member of the Council of State, a body that advises the President of the Republic. Both Dhlakama and Picardo stood, unsuccessfully, against Momade in the 2019 Congress.
Another possible contender is the mayor of the central city of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo.
“If there is a group of citizens who think I am the right person, then we shall see”, said Araujo last week. “We shall go to the National Council which will define the profile of candidate for President of Renamo. If I fit that profile, then I can stand. But if not, life goes on”.
Mondlane has once again taken his own party to court. He is seeking an injunction from the Maputo City Law Court, which would prevent the National Council from approving the profile submitted by the political commission.
He argues that the draft profile violates the Renamo Statutes which state that any party member has the right to elect and be elected. That rule, Mondlane said, “does not create any limitations”. The Statutes of Renamo are “the fundamental law that governs the party”, and could not be overruled at the whim of the leadership.
(AIM)
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