Maputo, 7 Jan (AIM) – The Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos) has rejected claims by former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane, and his legal advisor, Dinis Tivane, that it has “betrayed the people” by refusing to boycott the incoming parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
According to the parliamentary election results announced by the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of electoral law, Podemos won 47 seats, making it the largest opposition party in the new parliament.
Mondlane and Tivane believe that Podemos should not occupy their seats, when the new Assembly holds its first sitting on 13 January. But the Podemos leadership warns that the boycott strategy is a dead end.
Although Podemos supported Mondlane’s bid for the Presidency, Mondlane has never joined Podemos. There is a pre-election agreement between Mondlane and Podemos: but it has never been published, making it difficult to judge the accusations by each signatory that the other is in violation of the agreement.
On Monday, in a statement signed by its General Secretary, Sebastiao Mussanhane, Podemos said that, despite all the frauds that had happened, there was no longer any way of solving the dispute over the elections in a judicial manner.
The Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of Mozambican electoral law, had given its verdict, and there is no appeal against decisions of the Council.
The way forward, said Mussanhane, could no longer be through street demonstrations, “but by social agreement between all Mozambicans, between all living forces in the country, regardless of their differences”.
Mussanhane also rejected Tivane’s claim that elected deputies suffer no penalty, if they fail to occupy their seats. That idea clearly contradicted the Standing Orders of the Assembly of the Republic, which have the force of law. Deputies who do not take the oath of office will eventually lose their seats.
As for the agreement that Podemos had signed with Mondlane, Mussanhane said this did not question the independence of either side. Podemos, he claimed, had not only always respected its agreement with Mondlane, but had also gone along with decisions taken unilaterally by Mondlane even though he had, from the time of the election campaign onwards, “repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement”.
“Political activity is not an end in itself”, stressed Mussanhane, “but a means for solving the problems of the Mozambican people and promoting the progress of the country”.
“There are urgent and fundamental questions that must be treated as priorities”, he said, “such as guaranteeing political stability and solving post-election conflicts so that, in future elections, the people’s sovereignty is always respected and is determinant for the results”.
(AIM)
Pf/ (448)
