Mozambique elections: Armed contestation would be naïve – Renamo member and academic

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Mozambique elections: Armed contestation would be naïve – Renamo member and academic

4:17 CAT | 28 Oct 2019

File photo: Lusa

Mozambican philosopher and new Renamo member Alberto Ferreira yesterday said contesting Frelimo’s election victory would be naïve, and only result in death and destruction.

Alberto Ferreira recently declared his affiliation with the opposition Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) while serving as director of the Faculty of Philosophy at Eduardo Mondlane University (UEM), the oldest and largest higher education institution in the country.

Assuming, by virtue of his Catholicism, the stance of a cultivator of peace and tolerance, Ferreira rejects the scenario of the party he has just joined resorting to military means to contest the results of the 15th general and provincial elections, because, he says, that would only cause more suffering and would not remove the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) from the power which it has now enjoyed for over 44 years.

“It would be naive to call young people to take up arms and say ‘fight’. This is not the way; we will find ways to negotiate,” he said in an interview with Lusa.

Although Renamo has forced the Frelimo government to make concessions by military force in the past, dialogue and negotiations must be the platform to avoid further instability being caused by the controversy surrounding the election results.

“I did not defend war and I was never pro-war. In war, good people die, bad people die. War is harmful, that’s why we chose peace as the good way to go,” Ferreira said.

Military contestation might be one way to force people to sit at the table and Frelimo, “unfortunately, has always sat at the table [only when] forced by weapons,” but you have to bet on reason, he said.

Alberto Ferreira, who ran for deputy, also opposes the idea of boycotting the inauguration of the new Assembly of the Republic, because, he says, the party cannot give up the fight within the institutions.

“This has not worked [in the past], because the one who wants to kill, steal and defraud as [Frelimo] has done will not listen just because you have withdrawn from parliament; it has never been effective to withdraw from parliament,” Ferreira said.

The director of the UEM Faculty of Philosophy accuses the ruling party of wishing to take the country back to a “one party system”, but warns that democracy in the country is irreversible, because the new generations of Mozambicans will not allow the national political system to retrogress.

The election results of the 15th general elections were officially announced by the National Election Commission (CNE) yesterday, with Frelimo winning majorities in the presidential, legislative and provincial elections in all constituencies.

Renamo and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the two opposition parties in parliament, refuse to accept the results, alleging fraud, and several observation missions have also raised questions and concerns about the vote.

Source: Lusa