Maputo, 8 May (AIM) – Despite his apparent disqualification, Venancio Mondlane on Tuesday submitted his candidacy to become the next President of Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo.
Mondlane was the Renamo candidate for Mayor of Maputo in last year’s municipal elections, and led the protest marches against the fraudulent results announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE).
He was the first Renamo militant to declare his intention of standing for the Renamo presidency at the party’s Congress, scheduled for 15-16 May.
He is challenging the current Renamo president, Ossufo Momade, who was elected at a Congress held in January 2019.
Momade’s five year term of office expired on 17 January. Despite this, the party’s national spokesperson, José Manteigas, declared that Momade would be the Renamo candidate in the election for President of the Republic scheduled for 9 October.
Momade subsequently announced that a Congress will indeed be held and that he will stand for a second term of office as Renamo leader.
In early April, the Renamo National Council approved a profile for candidates for the inner-party election. Only those who fit the profile would be allowed to stand as candidates to succeed Momade as party leader.
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 has described this exclusion as “illegal”, and pushed ahead with his bid for the leadership, delivering his paperwork at the Renamo headquarters on Tuesday. He told reporters that the final decision on who is entitled to stand for election could only be taken by the Congress itself.
He also denied reports that he might stand as an independent in the October presidential election. He still expected to be the Renamo candidate in that election.
There are four other declared candidates, two of whom have family ties with Afonso Dhlakama, who led Renamo from 1979 until his death from diabetes in 2018.
One is Dhlakama’s brother, Elias Dhlakama, who is a retired colonel in the Mozambican army (FADM). The other is Dhlakama’s niece, Ivone Soares, who is a former head of the Renamo parliamentary group.
The others who have declared their intention to stand are the former Renamo general secretary, Andre Magibire, and the deputy chair of the Renamo parliamentary group, Alfredo Magumisse.
(AIM)
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