Assembly elects Isaque Chande ombudsman

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Assembly elects Isaque Chande ombudsman

7:34 CAT | 24 May 2018

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The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Thursday elected Justice Minister Isaque Chande to become the new ombudsman, replacing Jose Abudo, whose term of office expired in May 2017.

The ombudsman is elected by secret ballot, and requires a two thirds majority. Since there are 250 deputies in the Assembly, the winning candidate would need at least 167 votes.

When Abudo was elected ombudsman in 2012, the ruling Frelimo Party on its own had a two thirds majority, and did not require the support of any other party. But Frelimo lost its absolute majority in the 2014 parliamentary election. The current parliament has 144 Frelimo deputies, 89 from the rebel movement Renamo and 17 from the MDM (Mozambique Democratic Movement).

Simple arithmetic shows that the only way to achieve a two thirds majority is for the Frelimo and Renamo parliamentary groups to support the same candidate. Last year, it was thought that Renamo would support Chande, and the election was planned for December – but at the last moment Renamo opted to abstain, refusing to support either Chande or his sole opponent, Silverio Ronguane of the MDM. Since there was no two thirds majority, an election in December would have been pointless.

But now Renamo has changed its mind and threw its weight behind Chande. The Minister thus won with 196 votes to only 23 for Ronguane. There were also two blank ballots and one invalid vote. These figures indicate that at least six Renamo deputies must have broken ranks and voted for Ronguane.

Chande is a lawyer by profession and holds a law degree from Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University. President Filipe Nyusi appointed him Minister of Justice in March 2016. Chande, however, had made it clear that he would prefer the post of ombudsman to that of Minister.

Since the post of ombudsman is incompatible with holding a ministerial position, Nyusi must now appoint another justice minister.

Source: AIM