Mozambique Elections: Mia Couto hopes judiciary acts independently
Minister Adriano Maleiane. File photo: Folha de Maputo
The Mozambican finance minister Adriano Maleiane on Saturday criticised the threat of the main opposition party, the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), to abandon peace talks, saying peace must be valued.
“Any statement, wherever it comes from, which does not contribute to stability, to the peace that is needed, is of course always very bad,” Minister Maleiane said in Bali, Indonesia, where he was participating in the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which ended on Sunday.
“I have to believe in the efforts of the government, and in particular of the president of Mozambique, to maintain a peace that everyone will embrace, regardless of whether or not one is satisfied,” he said, choosing to interpret the position of the country’s largest opposition party “in the context of freedom of expression”.
Ossufo Momade, coordinator of Renamo’s political commission, threatened on Saturday to abandon peace talks with President Filipe Nyusi because of the alleged manipulation of the results of the local elections, whose provisional figures point to victory for the governing Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo) party in most municipalities.
In an interview with the Lusa news agency on Sunday, Maleiane warned that the economic growth of the country depended on political and social stability and that everyone should contribute to peace.
In terms of macroeconomic stability, we need stability, he said.
“I hope that all Mozambicans, including those who have now made the statement, will ultimately value peace, because only with peace can we grow,” he argued. “If there is no [peace], we will have neither the 5% nor the 7% [of economic growth].”
On Saturday, after Renamo threatened to abandon the peace talks, the ruling party appealed to the main opposition party to abandon its attempted “blackmail”. “The peace process must move on, and this political blackmail has to stop,” Frelimo spokeswoman Caifadine Manasse told a news conference in Maputo.
Renamo’s acting leader Ossufo Momade, she said, was “missing an opportunity to assert himself as a political leader”, and making “Mozambicans think that there is no progression in Renamo’s leadership thinking”.
The Frelimo spokesman attributed the threats to internal struggles by the leadership of the main opposition party.
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