Democracy not compatible with armed parties – Nyusi

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Democracy not compatible with armed parties – Nyusi

4:35 CAT | 25 Apr 2016

Folha de Maputo (File photo) / Mozambique's president Filipe Jacinto Nyusi

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi declared in Brussels on Friday that democracy is not compatible with the existence of armed political parties – a reference to Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, which operates an illegal militia responsible for a string of murderous attacks on the main roads in the centre of the country.

Nyusi, who during his two day visit to Brussels discussed the question of peace with the Belgian authorities and with European Union institutions, at a press briefing told reporters “everybody wants absolute peace and the best way of achieving this is not through violence”.

He noted that there was nothing surprising in the fact that Renamo refuses to recognise the results of the October 2014 general electons, won by Nyusi and the ruling Frelimo Party, since in the entire history of Mozambique Renamo had never recognized election results.

Speaking at the European press centre in Brussels, he said “for anyone who knows the history of Mozambique, there’s nothing new in Renamo not recognizing election results”.

He pointed out that the 2014 elections were held after an overhaul of the electoral legislation, which was rewritten to accommodate Renamo’s concerns. Despite this, Renamo still refused to recognise the results. This was the fifth general election in a row that Renamo had lost, but its reaction was to regard them all as fraudulent.

“If we reach a phase where everything is negotiated after the elections, that’s the murder of democracy”, he said. He insisted that Renamo must be disarmed, since in a democracy there are no armed political parties.

“You cannot carry out diplomacy with guns”, Nyusi stressed. “Clearly there can be no armed political parties since that is a bad precedent for crimes that may occur in Mozambique or anywhere else in the world”.

Nyusi reiterated his commitment to a dialogue for peace and his willingness to meet with Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama. That meeting should be prepared, and to that end the government had set up a group of three people to prepare the ground for a face-to-face meeting .

But Renamo had not reciprocated, and had not set up its own preparatory group. Instead it was making any talks between Dhlakama and Nyusi conditional on Renamo taking power in the six central and northern provinces it claims to have won in the 2014 elections. It had also demanded that any talks be mediated by the Catholic Church, the European Union and South African President Jacob Zuma.

“Why does Renamo not accept this group (set up by the government) which should prepared the meeting?”, asked Nyusi. “It contains credible people who, jointly with Renamo could prepare and discuss what should happen”.

Source: AIM