Renamo agrees to participate in dialogue

Maputo, 25 Nov (AIM) – Mozambique’s main parliamentary opposition party, Renamo, on Sunday night agreed to take part in the dialogue announced last week by President Filipe Nyusi, as a means to overcome the current post-election crisis.

This reverses an earlier decision which indicated that Renamo would not take part in the dialogue because it had been called by the President of the party that is responsible for the post-election turmoil.

But on Sunday a meeting of the Renamo Political Commission re-analysed Nyusi’s invitation, and the spokesperson for the party, Marcial Macome, declared that the Renamo leader, and presidential candidate, Ossufo Momade, would be present at the meeting, if certain conditions were met.

The first of these was to ensure the legal conditions for the other presidential candidates to attend. This is clearly a reference to the lawsuits against Venancio Mondlane: the Attorney-General’s Office has issued a warrant for Mondlane’s arrest on charges of conspiracy to overturn the established political order by unconstitutional means. He also faces a civil suit which demands damages equivalent to 505 million US dollars from Mondlane and the Podemos party, to cover the costs to the State of the demonstrations called by Mondlane.

Mondlane has already made it clear that he will not take part in the dialogue until these charges are dropped. Renamo has now backed him up: Macome said that, if Mondlane cannot attend in person, then the meeting will have to be held virtually.

An even larger stumbling block is the Renamo insistence that all four presidential candidates must agree that the 9 October general elections were not “fair, free and transparent”.

Daniel Chapo, the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party, declared the winner by the National Elections Commission (CNE), is most unlikely to agree to this demand.

Mondlane declared last week that he will only attend the meeting if the PGR drops the charges against him. There has been no public response from the PGR or from the government, and time is running out.

Nyusi set the meeting to start the dialogue for Tuesday, at 16.00, in the presdential office.

(AIM)

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