Mozambique: State Council and Budget on the agenda of the first parliamentary session

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Mozambique: State Council and Budget on the agenda of the first parliamentary session

1:23 CAT | 24 Mar 2025

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican parliament will be sitting starting this Wednesday in its first ordinary session of the legislature, with the election of the members of the Council of State and the draft State Budget for 2025 among the items on the agenda.

According to a notice on the sitting consulted today by Lusa, the first following the general elections of 9 October, 2024, the agenda contains 26 items, including the annual

information from the Attorney General of the Republic, the proposal for the Government’s Five-Year Programme 2025-2029, questions from the MPs to the executive, and the draft resolution on the election of the members of the National Defence and Security Council.

However, one of the issues that is in the spotlight, in addition to the approval of the State Budget, is the appointment of members to the Council of State.

According to the Constitution of the Republic, the appointment of Venâncio Mondlane, as the second most popular presidential candidate in October, is expected, but Mondlane does not recognise the election results, which gave victory to Daniel Chapo, who was sworn in as the fifth President of the Republic on 15 January.

The Constitution defines the Council of State as a “political body for consultation with the President of the Republic,” which he presides over, and which includes by right the President of the Assembly of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the President of the Constitutional Council, the Ombudsman, former Presidents of the Republic who have not been dismissed from office, and former Presidents of the Assembly of the Republic.

According to article 163 of the Constitution of the Republic, the Council of State must also be made up of “seven individuals of recognised merit elected by the Assembly of the Republic for the period of the legislative term, in accordance with parliamentary representation,,” as well as of “four individuals of recognised merit appointed by the President of the Republic for the period of his term of office,” and “the second most voted candidate for the position of President of the Republic”.

“The members of the Council of State shall enjoy privileges, immunities and protocol treatment to be established by law,” the Constitution establishes.

READ: Mozambique: President meets opposition chief to reset relations

Until now, Ossufo Momade, president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), had a seat on the Council of State, as he was the second most voted candidate in the 2019 presidential elections.

The Council of State is responsible for “advising the President of the Republic in the exercise of his functions whenever he so request,” but it must also “compulsorily pronounce itself” on the dissolution of the Assembly of the Republic, declaration of war, a state of siege or a state of emergency, the holding of a referendum, the calling of general elections and the dismissal of a provincial governor or district administrator.

President Chapo met Venâncio Mondlane on Sunday (23-03) to “discuss solutions to the challenges facing the country”.

.In a statement issued yesterday evening, the Presidency explained that the meeting, the first between Daniel Chapo and Venâncio Mondlane to be publicly announced after the start of street protests following the general elections on 9 October, took place in Maputo and was part of “the ongoing effort to promote national stability and reinforce the commitment to reconciliation and unity among Mozambicans”.

“In search of a national solution to the population’s cry for help in relation to the situation of extreme insecurity in which the country found itself, we held a meeting with the head of the government, Daniel Francisco Chapo (…) to begin a mutual process to respond to the
appeals and desires of the Mozambican people,” Venâncio Mondlane wrote this morning on his official Facebook page.

On March 11, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) of Mozambique imposed an identity and residence order on Mondlane, in a case in which the Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses the politician of inciting violence in the post-election demonstrations, in which around 360 people have died since October 21.

“This means that I cannot travel without notifying the PGR, I cannot stay away from my home for more than five days,” Mondlane said, after being heard for more than ten hours about one of the eight cases in which he is targeted in the context of the post-election protests and social unrest in Mozambique.