Maputo, 30 Aug (AIM) – Ossufo Momade, the leader and presidential candidate of Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, returned to Maputo on Friday afternoon after missing the entire first week of the campaign for the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.
According to a report in the independent newsheet “Carta de Mocambique”, Momade arrived at Maputo international airport on an Ethiopian Airlines flight, accompanied by his wife. He traveled business class.
No other details are known yet. Renamo has not said where its leader was. It is suspected that he had gone abroad for medical reasons, but the Renamo spokesperson, Marciel Macome, strongly denied this.
Macome claimed that Momade was on “a political mission”, but gave no details.
Momade is expected to launch his election campaign this weekend, but he has already lost momentum to the three other presidential candidates – Daniel Chapo of the ruling Frelimo Party, Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), and the independent candidate and former Renamo member, Venancio Mondlane.
Momade’s absence led to a spate of fake stories as media outlets which should have known better published claims that the Renamo leader was hospitalized.
A picture circulated on social media showing a bedridden patient surrounded by medical staff. The man’s face could not be seen, so whoever was responsible for the fake published alongside it a genuine picture of Momade with the caption “Ossufo is ill”.
The fact checking department of the Mozambican chapter of the press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) investigated the photo and found that it had nothing to do with Renamo or Momade.
It was a photo taken in Kenya on 17 June 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The unnamed man was in a Kenyan intensive care unit, and it is not clear whether he survived.
(AIM)
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