Moves under way to exclude Venâncio Mondlane from Renamo congress

Maputo, 13 May (AIM) – Moves are under way to exclude Venancio Mondlane from the Congress of Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday in the municipality of Alto Molocue in the central province of Zambezia.

Mondlane was the Renamo candidate for mayor of Maputo in last year’s municipal elections, and led the subsequent demonstrations against the fraudulent results announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE).

He is one of the best known public faces of Renamo, and has declared his intention of running for the Renamo Presidency at the Congress.

Mondlane was elected a delegate to the Congress from the Maputo municipal district of KaMabukwana. But, according to a report in Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”, on Friday the chairperson of the Renamo Maputo City Provincial Conference, Samuel Manjate, announced that Mondlane will not be allowed to attend the Congress.

Manjate was allegedly acting on orders given by the current Renamo President, Ossufo Momade, who is standing for a second term of office at the Congress.

Mondlane responded by sending a letter to the Congress Preparation Office and to the party’s National Jurisdictional Council, protesting at the attempts to keep him out of the Congress.

“Venancio is not going to the Congress”, declared Manjate. “This position was taken in accordance with questions raised, as prior points, by the Provincial Political Delegate, Domingos Gundana”.

These points included Mondlane’s declared intention of running for the party’s presidency. Manjate believed that Mondlane should not have stood for election as a Congress delegate, while he was running for the Presidency.

The second point ruling him out, said Manjate, was his appeal to the courts against the illegalities he believed the current Renamo leadership was committing, and his “public statements about Renamo”.

Mondlane had taken out an injunction against the party leadership for Momade’s failure to call a Congress in good time. The Congress should be held every five years, and the previous Congress was held in January 2019. He told the Maputo City Court that Momade’s term of office had expired on 17 January, and any decisions taken since then were illegitimate.

This injunction forced Ossufo Momade’s hand: without Mondlane’s resort to the courts, it is unlikely that the leadership would have called a Congress at all.

In his letter, Mondlane called on the Party to rule Manjate’s decision null and void “since it lacks any legal basis and it is an enormous risk for the public image of the party before the electorate”.

On Saturday, Mondlane flew to Zambezia, and in the provincial capital, Quelimane, he was welcomed as a hero. The enormous crowds that accompanied Mondlane through the streets of Quelimane sent a clear warning to the Renamo leadership of how foolish it would be to exclude him from the Congress.

The demonstration in support of Mondlane continued on Sunday. The reception for Mondlane (and for the other candidates for the Renamo presidency) was organized by the Mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo, who has ruled himself out of the running for the party’s presidency.

(AIM)

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