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DW / Manuel de Araújo's resignation does not help the party, which was already in crisis
Manuel de Araújo is no longer the head of the MDM list in Quelimane, and this is not the party’s first casualty. Analyst Fernando Lima predicts difficulties in the local elections.
If the situation in the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) was already difficult, it has not improved. With Venâncio Mondlane leaving for the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), there was already talk about a party in crisis. Now, Manuel de Araújo has announced that he will no longer be head the MDM list in Quelimane. According to local press, the politician is preparing to join Renamo.
DW Africa spoke to Mozambican journalist and political analyst Fernando Lima, who agrees that this is a “serious blow for the MDM”. According to Lima, the main problem is that the defection of senior MDM cadres to Renamo calls into question possible coalitions to defeat the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo) in the elections. Lima argues however that parties cannot depend on personalities, and that the MDM still has a strong base of supporters on which it can count.
DW Africa: What’s happening in the MDM?
Fernando Lima (FL): What has happened is that there has been a great desertion of known personalities, the latest of which is Manuel de Araújo. I think it’s a serious blow to the MDM, because it is losing recognisable people with great skills at a particularly difficult time – on the eve of local elections. But, as MDM leader Daviz Simango has recently said, parties cannot be formed on the basis of personalities: they have to be formed by militants, people who do the work of the party, who devote themselves to a party cause, who believe in the politics and ideology of the party. That’s what the MDM has to do.
DW Africa: What is the future of MDM? What can you expect from the party?
FL: It’s a very tough test that the MDM will have to face. The MDM could have formed a coalition of great potential with Renamo, a coalition between the two main opposition parties. I think that at the moment, with these defections and with the fact that the majority of defections are in just the one direction, I doubt that this possible. Coalitions could still happen in specific cases where it is concluded that, in a given municipality, there should be a coalition to weigh against the Frelimo candidate. It’s a very, very serious blow to the MDM.
DW Africa: Without this possibility of coalition, is the scenario for municipal elections really negative?
FL: I would say that it is difficult, but I would also say that the MDM has to learn from its lessons in the political struggle, that is, to understand that politics is not just about people who directly occupy positions of power, in terms of parliament and in the municipalities, but that [these people] must correspond to another type of struggle and deeper militancy, which is not the case with those people who have abandoned the MDM, because they are mostly recent members of the MDM.
DW Africa: Do you have any idea of the motivations that led people like Manuel de Araújo to leave the MDM for Renamo?
FL: All these people speak of lack of internal democracy in the MDM. There is clearly an internal problem in the MDM in terms of the discussion of ideas, the very functioning of structures, which has led to these individuals’ discontent. The MDM is, by virtue of its statutes, very centred on the figure of Daviz Simango, the current mayor of Beira. This is another discomfort for these people, who would like to see more internal democracy in the MDM. But the bottom line, clearly, is that there are problems connected with the nature of the personalities who have left the party.
DW Africa: Do you think Daviz Simango is getting isolated at the head of the party?
FL: No, I do not think he is isolated. I do not confuse the party with the fact that half a dozen famous figures, people with resounding names, have left it. These are significant political blows to the MDM, but the MDM has hundreds of thousands of people voting for it and it does not seem to me that the existence of so many thousands of MDM supporters leaves Daviz Simango at all alone at its head.
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