Amend Constitution “but not at price of threats” – AIM report

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Amend Constitution “but not at price of threats” – AIM report

7:47 CAT | 26 Mar 2018

Notícias

Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party is willing to press ahead with amending the country’s Constitution but “not at the price of threats”, declared President Filipe Nyusi on Sunday.

Speaking in his capacity as President of the Party, Nyusi was speaking at the end of a three day meeting of the Frelimo Central Committee in the southern city of Matola, at which the draft constitutional amendments had been one of the themes for debate.

The amendments are intended to bring the Constitution into line with the consensus reached in negotiations between the government and the rebel movement Renamo over decentralisation.

The initial version of the amendments, as announced by Nyusi in February, was that mayors, provincial governors and district administrators will be elected, but indirectly. Municipal, provincial and district assemblies would be elected, and whichever party won a majority of votes in those elections would then appoint the mayor, provincial governor or district administrator.

This concentration of power in the hands of political parties caused an outcry, and Frelimo modified the proposal so that whoever headed the winning list of candidates for the Assembly would become mayor, governor or administrator.

Nyusi, summarising the Central Committee meeting, stressed that achieving effective peace could not be attained through threats, but as the fruit of a frank and permanent dialogue “with all the living forces of society”. Such a dialogue should restore the confidence necessary for attaining and consolidating peace

“We urged all Mozambicans to unite around this greater good, peace, regardless of the difference which characterise us and which make us great as a nation”, said Nyusi.

The Central Committee, he continued, reaffirmed the determination to keep Frelimo in the vanguard of the transformation of Mozambican society, committed to serving the people, and attentive to the political, economic and social dynamics of the country and of the world.

“We stressed the need to improve the relationship between the party and the government, seeking to respond to the deepest longings of citizens”, said Nyusi, “and thus improving the living conditions of the people”.

The Central Committee made a detailed analysis of the government’s performance since Nyusi took office as head of state in January 2015, and claimed that it was positive, thanks to measures adopted “to stimulate production and productivity, to stabilise the macro-economic environment, to guarantee transparency in the management of the public debt, and to restructure the state business sector”.

The Central Committee urged the government to redouble its efforts to meet the targets laid down in the government’s five year programme for the 2015-2019 period. It also instructed the executive to take a tougher line in the struggle against corruption.

Immediately after the meeting had closed, Nyusi launched the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the Frelimo Second Congress, held during the national liberation struggle in July 1968, at Matchedje, inside Frelimo’s liberated areas in the northern province of Niassa.

The celebrations, he urged, “belong to all Mozambicans without any form of discrimination”.

Holding the Congress during the liberation war, and inside Mozambique, Nyusi said, sent a signal to Mozambicans and to the world of the certainty of the liberation movement’s advance towards independence.

“This was one of the greatest blows against the enemy of all Mozambicans, Portuguese colonialism”, he added. “The Second Congress was determinant for the advance of our struggle, in that it allowed us to overcome internal differences, and defined the ideological line of Frelimo, creating a common vision of the goals of our struggle, of the enemy of the Mozambican people, of the nature of the war, and of the role of women in national liberation”.

Source: AIM