Maputo, 22 Aug (AIM) – Venancio Mondlane, the independent candidate in the Mozambican presidential elections scheduled for 9 October, has formed an alliance with the “Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique” (PODEMOS), which was set up by dissidents from the ruling Frelimo Party.
Podemos is Portuguese for “We can” – the party’s name thus derives from the slogan “Yes, we can” used by Barack Obama in the United States in his first presidential campaign in 2008.
Mondlane signed an agreement with the chairperson of Podemos, Albino Forquilha, on Wednesday.
Podemos steps into the gap left by the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD) which was disqualified from running in the parliamentary and provincial elections also scheduled for 9 October. The same fate cannot overtake Podemos because the National Elections Commission (CNE) has already accepted its lists of candidates for the elections.
Mondlane is confident that he can win the presidential election and, through Podemos, he will have a group of parliamentarians who will support him.
Cited in Thursday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, he declared that CAD “will not be forgotten. But the baton has now been transferred to Podemos. We shall do everything together. We shall draw up a campaign plan together”.
Forquilha said “we have joined CAD and Venancio because we share the same ideology, and the same mission of returning to the people respect for the civic rights of Mozambicans”.
Podemos is the successor of the Youth Association for the Development of Mozambique (Ajudem), a civil society association which ran Samora Machel Junior, the son of the country’s first President, Samora Machel, for mayor of Maputo in the 2018 municipal elections.
Machel Junior (commonly known as “Samito”) had hoped to run for Mayor as the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party. But the Frelimo leadership did not even include him on the short list of possible mayoral candidates.
So Machel turned to civil society and Ajudem stepped up to run him as its candidate – much to the anger of Frelimo, which threatened disciplinary action against Machel.
In August 2018, the CNE rejected the Ajudem candidacy on the grounds that Ajudem did not have enough substitutes in its list of candidates for the Maputo Municipal Assembly.
Ajudem argued that the Frelimo Maputo leadership had intimidated Ajudem members into removing their names from the list, including with threats that they would lose their jobs.
The Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, agreed with the CNE and rejected an Ajudem appeal.
The following year Ajudem set up Podemos. At the time, Forquilha declared “this is coming from the Frelimo grass roots. It’s a continuation of what happened in 2018 when the Frelimo grass roots decided to go for someone appropriate for change. This was not accepted. There was an anti-democratic process and the will of the grass roots did not prevail”.
Podemos hoped to run Machel Junior as its presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections. But that was a step too far for Machel. Asked if he would accept an invitation from Podemos, he replied that he had no intention of leaving Frelimo.
This year’s official campaign for the general elections begins on Saturday. Last Tuesday, the official government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, promised that all the money requested by the CNE will be made available.
The total needed, according to CNE spokesperson Paulo Cuinica, is 19.9 billion meticais (311 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate). The government had only provided less than seven billion meticais from the state budget, leaving a deficit of around 13 billion meticais.
(AIM)
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