Mozambique: Quelimane mayor considers running for party leader

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Mozambique: Quelimane mayor considers running for party leader

5:36 CAT | 18 Jan 2024

Photo: Lusa

The re-elected Mozambican mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araújo, said on Thursday that he would run for the leadership of Renamo if he didn’t see “answers” from the candidates to the country’s problems and that Ossufo Momade, the current president, can only continue with “a metamorphosis”.

“If none of them answer, then I’ll have to make a move, or I’ll support others who answer these questions,” said Manuel de Araújo in an interview with Lusa, at a time when – although no elective congress has yet been confirmed for the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) – three militants have already announced that they want to compete for the leadership of the largest opposition party, in a year when Mozambique is holding elections, including for president of the country, in October.

“If Renamo wants to maintain the epithet of father of democracy, it’s not enough to say out loud that it’s the father of democracy, it must appear as the father of democracy. Renamo is on the high seas. This is a decisive moment for Renamo’s history,” warned the mayor of Quelimane, the capital of Zambezia, a member of Renamo’s National Council and one of the party’s most popular militants.

In office since December 2011, Manuel de Araújo, 53, saw the National Electoral Commission announce the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party) as the winner of the municipal elections in Quelimane on 11 October, in the face of widespread opposition to the results and accusations of “fraud”. After 45 days of daily demonstrations, this announcement was reversed in November by the Constitutional Council, which proclaimed Manuel de Araújo the winner in Quelimane, following verification of the voting minutes and notices.

In these local elections, Renamo lost eight municipalities out of a total of 53 to just four after the intervention of the Constitutional Council out of 65 municipalities (12 new ones). In the last legislative elections, the party lost more than 30 deputies and failed to elect any provincial governors.

The party has been led by Ossufo Momade since the death of Afonso Dhlakama in May 2018, but the mandate of the party’s organs, reinforces Manuel de Araújo, expired on 17 January: “They are out of their mandate, therefore with less legitimacy.”

He is, therefore, surprised by the statements made this month by the party’s spokesman, José Manteigas, who named Ossufo Momade as a candidate in Porto’s general elections for the post of President of the Republic.

“Renamo will either prove to the world that it is a democratic party, that it follows its principles by convening the National Council and eventually the congress following democratic methods, or it will bow to the left and go down the road of anti-democracy, against its own principles,” Araújo challenged.

Even though no elective congress or national commission meeting has been called, three activists have already announced that they intend to run for the leadership of Renamo, such as MP and former Maputo mayoral candidate Venâncio Mondlane, the son of the party’s historic leader, Elias Dhlakama, and former MP Juliano Picardo.

“The choice is ours. Right now, the Renamo leadership has to make that choice. Either we continue to be the fathers of democracy, or we become the stepfathers of democracy,” he warned, calling once again for the National Council to be convened to define the next steps in the party’s internal life.

And the future, he acknowledged, could even involve Ossufo Momade leading Renamo: “There is no doubt that Renamo needs more speed, Renamo needs new blood, Renamo needs a more present, more powerful leadership. The question is whether President Ossufo Momade will appear stronger, bolder, and more visible. He will have to make a metamorphosis of himself.”

Until then, Manuel de Araújo insists that he is an observer.

“If I realise that there isn’t a candidacy that responds to the interests of the youth, that responds to the interests of the intelligentsia, that responds to the interests of women, that responds to the interests of former combatants and freedom fighters, then I, as a party activist, will be obliged and forced to launch an alternative candidacy,” he said.

Araújo recalls that there are people “who fought for 16 years” and “lost their youth” or even died for Mozambique to achieve democracy and that for the former Renamo fighters, there are no answers or solutions to the difficulties of the demobilisation process.

“These are problems that I want to see in these manifestos [of the candidates]. Whether these manifestos respond to that or not. I’m not voting for people. I’m voting for programmes. If President Ossufo Momade answers these questions, I can go along with him (…) And if nobody answers, I think we’ll have to respond by moving forward,” he concluded.

Source: Lusa