MDM in crisis: Party may “disappear” – analyst

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MDM in crisis: Party may “disappear” – analyst

7:34 CAT | 21 Jun 2018

The MDM is in danger of disappearing altogether, according to governance expert Silvestre Baessa. Mozambique’s second largest opposition party, which has long been in crisis, has seen one of its members publicly refusing to be the head of the list for this year’s municipal elections and another high-profile member leaving the ranks, both because of a perceived lack of democracy within the party.

First, Venancio Mondlane put the MDM in the spotlight by publicly declining last week to be the head of the party’s list for Maputo’s municipal elections in October 2018. The MDM deputy described his position to DW Africa: “I was not consulted, I did not give my endorsement and I did not even want to be chosen as head of the list.

For the deputy, “it is a total and complete incongruity” to be presented as the head of the list, his political and social positions “regarding ‘the Mercedes’ and the various aspects related to the party’s internal democracy” having been roundly rejected.

“The political committee of the party has withdrawn its political trust in me,” he says.

Lack of internal democracy

Mosambik II Kongress von MDM Partei in Nampula — *2nd Congress of the MDM in December 2017 in Nampula*

Last week, another prominent member of the second-largest opposition party publicly announced his departure. António Frangoulis threw in the towel, accusing the MDM of a lack of internal democracy. “What made me leave the MDM was having concluded that MDM was a democratic movement in name only,” he said.

In an interview with DW, Frangoulis explains that the last congress of the party set the seal on his demotivation: “There was pressure to introduce truly democratic principles of voting for the membership of deliberative organs, which was rejected on the grounds that the party was only nine years old and it that it was not yet time.”

A cabal against the MDM?

Both Mondlane and Frangoulis make it clear that their discontent is related to the direction of the MDM and not to the party itself. And they also say that their points of disagreement are not recent, and that the party’s rather loose position in the Second Congress was the last straw.

Meanwhile, local elections are just around the corner. Are the pronouncements of these senior MDM members coincidental or are they intended to further weaken the party’s image?

“I do not necessarily see it as a cabal intended to destroy the MDM,” Silvestre Baessa replies.

The analyst highlights the current context, “in which Renamo appears as a major political force driven by the results of Nampula. It is not known to what extent the death of its leader will affect its ability to compete and convince the electorate in the next municipal elections. Given that Renamo is interested in competing with strong candidates, it is natural that those figures who have a political commitment far ahead as to what concerns a probable ideology, do not feel that same receptiveness and abandon [the party].”

Risk of overthrow

The disagreement between the MDM and the mayor of Nampula marking the public beginning of the crisis in the party. The murder of mayor Mahamudo Amurane and the loss of the municipality to Renamo at the mayoral by-election in February contributed to further weaken the party’s image.

PortrÃ¤t - Silvestre Baessa — *Silvestre Baessa, specialist in good governance*

Mondlane and Frangoulis’s damning pronouncements only show that the crisis has worsened.

Governance expert Silvestre Baessa has no doubt that the MDM risks disappearing for good.

“There is indeed [that risk]. The strength of the MDM was local governance, and the possibility of Renamo maintaining control of Nampula, winning Quelimane and Beira (city), and because there is a very high level of discontent, it is to be expected that the party may disappear or find its current political position further weakened.”

Invited to react to the positions of Mondlane and Frangoulis, with particular emphasis on the electoral context, the MDM stresses that it does not feel fragile in the face of recent events.

“‘Spring doesn’t come to an end because one swallow dies,'” says MDM spokesman Sande Carmona. “The MDM remains firm: it has the goals that guided the youth of August 28 and that culminated in the creation of the MDM in 2009. Nothing can disrupt the objectives of the youth of August 28 on behalf of the party.”

Source: Deutsche Welle