Mozambique: Affront to constitution if president runs for third term – Renamo

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Mozambique: Affront to constitution if president runs for third term – Renamo

8:56 CAT | 31 May 2022

Photo: Bancada Parlamentar da Renamo on Facebook

The leader of Renamo, the main Mozambican opposition party, on Monday called the alleged attempt to make the country’s current president, Filipe Nyusi, run for a third term of office a “rehearsal for adventurers”, warning that it would be “an affront to the constitution”.

“This is an adventurers’ experiment, because the country’s constitution says that the president’s mandate is for five years and he can only be re-elected once,” said Ossufo Momade, who was speaking at the opening of the third ordinary session of the National Council of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the party’s main body in the interval between congresses, which meets today and Tuesday in Maputo.

“Any attempt to pull or force a third mandate constitutes an authentic affront to the Constitution of the Republic and a major attack on the rule of law and democracy instituted in the country,” he said.

The opposition leader accused the current head of state of being incapable of governing and of solving the country’s problems, demanding that he leaves office in 2025, when the second and last mandate allowed by the country’s fundamental law ends.

Ossufo Momade also said that there are sectors of the ruling Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) that are “manipulating” the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM).

On Friday, OJM, the ruling party’s youth, expressed support for an eventual and unprecedented third term of Filipe Nyusi as president of the organisation.

Sectors of Mozambican society fear that an eventual third term of Nyusi in the presidency of the party could pave the way for a constitutional amendment so that the current head of state runs for a third term in Ponta Vermelha, the official residence of the Mozambican head of state.

In case he fails a third candidacy for the head of state, but remains at the head of Frelimo, Filipe Nyusi would retain power indirectly, given the party’s influence.

In his speech, Ossufo Momade called on civil society, political parties and the international community to oppose attempts to revise the country’s constitution to accommodate a possible third term.

“Mozambicans cannot accept and must not allow the return to dictatorship,” he stressed.

Momade warned of signs of the degradation of fundamental rights in the country, pointing to the curtailment of press and expression freedoms and the risk of “government intrusion” in religious freedom, through the proposed law on religion, which the executive is preparing to submit to parliament.

The president of the country and of Frelimo has not yet pronounced himsefl on the question of the third mandate in the ruling party, a silence which fuels theories about their real intentions.

Whenever the country prepares to enter a new electoral cycle, it is often suggested that the head of state is considering running for a third term, as happened with Filipe Nyusi’s predecessors.

Source: Lusa