Mozambique Elections: No Christmas this year, decrees Mondlane - AIM report
Frelimo and Renamo call for victory in Tete – Mozambique elections, AIM report
10:19 CAT | 27 Sep 2018
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Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party on Tuesday urged voters in the western city of Tete to give it an overwhelming victory in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October.
Speaking at the opening of the party’s campaign in Tete, Political Commission member Ana Rita Sithole declared “Frelimo wants to continue in power in order to consolidate the peace process. With Frelimo in power, we shall consolidate political dialogue so that Mozambicans may work in peace”.
Sithole was convinced that Frelimo will win, not only in Tete city, but in the other three municipalities in the province – Moatize, Ulongue, and Nhamayabue.
Frelimo’s mayoral candidate in Tete is Cesar de Carvalho – a surprising choice since there are accusations of corruption hanging over him. He was mayor from 2008 to 2013, but Frelimo did not run him for a further term in 2013, after the Central Office for the Fight Against Corruption (GCCC) had charged him with abuse of office and making false statements.
The charges arose out of dispatches supposedly signed by the mayor, in which he granted himself 12 plots of land. During the preliminary investigation, Carvalho denied holding land titles to any of these plots. The Public Prosecutor’s Office did not believe him, and had every intention of taking the matter to trial. But the case was postponed sine die due to what were described as “procedural issues”, and so the matter has never been resolved.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday Carvalho was presented to the Tete rally as the ideal person to guarantee a Frelimo victory.
He promised that, if elected, he would deal with the shortage of drinking water in some of the city neighbourhoods. He declared that the water shortage would be definitively solved within the next five years. “We shall have no more water problems in our municipality”, he pledged.
Carvalho also promised a bridge over the Mufa river, to allow easy circulation of people between the centre of the city and the outlying neighbourhood of Degue, a new cemetery and improvement in access roads.
The former rebel movement Renamo, however, is equally confident of winning on 10 October. The Renamo Tete Provincial Delegate, Felix Khembo, claimed on Tuesday that the only reason Renamo had lost in previous elections was that its polling station monitors had been bribed “to steal votes”.
“Our monitors were deceived by 50 meticais (about 83 US cents, at current exchange rates) to steal votes”, he alleged. He was certain the same thing would not happen this time, because Renamo would be sure to provide its monitors with food and water throughout the day.
If anyone was raising money to defeat Renamo now, they were wasting their time, said Khembo. But he also threatened violence.
“We have discovered all the tricks, and so you should not be afraid of voting for Renamo”, he told a crowd of supporters. “If Frelimo fires guns, we shall also fire. We know about AK-47s. If they throw stones at us, we shall throw stones back”,
But Renamo did not lose the previous municipal elections, in 2013, because of fraud or bribery. There was a much simpler reason – it did not stand. Renamo boycotted those elections and so, throughout the country, they were a two horse race between Frelimo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
In Tete, the MDM mayoral candidate, Ricardo Tomas, won 34.3 per cent of the vote. Tomas is standing again this time – but for Renamo. He is one of several MDM turncoats who have defected to Renamo, and have been parachuted to the top of Renamo lists for the municipal elections.
Khembo introduced Tomas to the crowd. Boasting that, with Renamo “nothing will fail”, Tomas promised improvements in social services, housing, and job creation. He also pledged a reduction in energy prices – an impossible promise since electrify prices are set centrally, by the electricity company, EDM.
A Renamo municipal council, he added, would set up centres to accommodate elderly people and vulnerable children, and would ensure that the city’s garbage is recycled.
“We’ve had enough of Tete citizens suffering because of Frelimo”, he declared.
Source: AIM
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