Maputo, 5 Mar (AIM) – Several dozen members and supporters of the former rebel movement Renamo, which used to be Mozambique’s main parliamentary opposition party, on Tuesday once again closed down the party’s regional headquarters in the northern province of Nampula, and demanded that the party’s leader, Ossufo Momade, be sacked.
They continue to blame Momade for Renamo’s poor performance in the 9 October general elections when he obtained only 5.81% of the votes, the worst ever result for a Renamo presidential candidate. Renamo dropped to third position, behind both the ruling Frelimo Party and the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), which had backed the independent presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane.
Renamo only won 28 seats in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic losing its status as the second largest political force to Podemos, which has 43 representatives in the new parliament.
According to one of the former guerrillas, Ernesto Douglas, the late Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama “used to meet with his demobilized fighters, but with the arrival of Ossufo Momade, we were discarded. They deceived us into thinking that we would be demobilized in the Demilitarization, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) process. They said that we would have the right to build our own houses, to have small projects and that some would go to the Ministry of the Interior, but that did not happen”, he said, cited by the Portuguese News Agency, Lusa.
According to Douglas, by closing the doors of the provincial delegation, the former guerrillas want to pressure Ossufo Momade to maintain a dialogue with the rank and file of his party.
The former Renamo guerrillas also said that they had requested an audience with the party’s provincial delegate to present their complaints, but without success.
“We don’t want provincial delegate Abiba Aba, she should leave because she is very arrogant. She doesn’t want to work in coordination with us, the former combatants who fought for democracy. She and our president Ossufo Momade should leave. We have already closed the delegation,” said Carolina Yahaia, another former guerrilla.
In response to the complaints, the party’s spokesperson in Nampula, Nelson Carvalho, said that the closure of the delegation’s doors was an initiative of its members with the aim of “avoiding confrontations”.
“When we became aware of this situation, we ended up locking our delegation. It wasn’t them who locked it. We did it all to avoid confrontations between members, which is why this press conference is taking place here in the city delegation, so that there are no confrontations”, he said.
Last week, Renamo national spokesperson, Marcial Macome, announced the postponement of the meeting of the party’s National Council that had been scheduled for 7-8 March. However, he gave no plausible reason for the postponement and announced no new date for the meeting.
The National Council will decide whether Momade remains leader of the party. Momade’s current whereabouts are unknown, and there are unconfirmed reports that he has left the country for medical treatment abroad.
(AIM)
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