Due to take place yesterday: Renamo did not attend meeting with mediators – Notícias headline

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Due to take place yesterday: Renamo did not attend meeting with mediators – Notícias headline

12:48 CAT | 10 Aug 2016

Notícias / Father Angelo Romano, EU mediator, talks to journalists yesterday

Notícias reports that Renamo delegation to the joint commission preparing a meeting between the President of the Republic, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, and the leader of the main opposition party, Afonso Dhlakama, did not attend yesterday afternoon’s talks session involving international mediators.

At the time of going to press, the reasons for the absence of the Renamo delegation were unknown, according to the state-owned daily, the largest-circulation newspaper in Mozambique.

According to Notícias, the meeting was scheduled for 4:00 p.m., when Father Angelo Romano, a member of the team of mediators, told reporters that the Renamo delegation, due to deliver a document outlining its reasons for claiming the right to govern in the six provinces of the country where it says it won the general elections in 2014, was expected at any time.

According to Angelo Romano, once Renamo delivered the document, mediators would have held consultations among themselves, but in the end, both the mediators and the government delegation left the meeting without speaking to the media.

Yesterday morning, the government Joint Commission team laid out to the mediators its proposals for overcoming the differences in positions on the issue of Renamo governance of the six provinces.

The government’s proposal, it maintains, contains “adequate reasons”, both for its position on the matter of the “governance of the six provinces” and for the remaining three points on the agenda agreed for the meeting between the president and the Renamo leader.

One of the government’s arguments is that Renamo did not in fact win in the six provinces, as it claims, and cites Nampula as an example.

The government also maintains that the decentralization process can be hastened, with provisions for the direct election or appointment of provincial governors. However, this exercise would involve changing some of the provisions of the constitution, the law of the local state organs, the law of organisation and functioning of public administration, and the law of provincial finances, among others.

This process would be carried out before the next elections and implemented by the next administration.

With regard to the cessation of military hostilities, it is known that Renamo has presented as a precondition the withdrawal of Defence and Security Forces from Gorongosa, where its leader is residing.

Source: Notícias