Mozambique: Renamo divisions on view in Nampula – AIM report

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Mozambique: Renamo divisions on view in Nampula – AIM report

10:37 CAT | 03 Sep 2019

A view of Nampula city. [File photo: Focus]

The divisions within Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, were on display at the weekend in the northern city of Nampula when the Renamo candidate for Nampula provincial governor, Luis Mecupia, launched a thinly disguised attack on the Renamo mayor of Nampula city, Paulo Vahanle.

At his first election campaign rally, in the city neighbourhood of Muhala-Expansao, Mecupia attacked the Nampula Municipal Council for failing to pay anything to the volunteers who sweep the city streets, according to a report in Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.

The use of volunteer labour to clean up the city was an innovation of the previous mayor, Mahamudo Amurane, who was assassinated in October 2017. Vahanle has continued the practice, and when Vahanle became mayor in April 2018, after a by-election, he recruited a large number of Renamo supporters to help sweep the streets.

There was no pay for this work, which led some of the volunteers to drop out. Mecupia lamented the situation, and announced that he would hold a meeting with representatives of the street sweepers – which seems a clear attempt to undermine Vahanle’s authority.

He declared that it was unfair to give people tasks, even on a voluntary basis, and then offer them no payment or incentives. When reporters asked him if he was criticising Vahanle, Mecupia refused to mention the mayor by name.

Source: AIM