Mozambique: Portugal wants EU military training mission to continue
Frelimo Moçambique
The elections commission set up by the 11th Congress of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party on Sunday afternoon announced the composition of the Party’s new Central Committee after a vote counting marathon that had lasted throughout the previous night.
Counting the votes is complex since the ballot paper has no less than ten separate sections. This is because there are quotas on the Central Committee for women, for young people, for veterans of the national liberation struggle, and for a catch-all category of “economic and social sectors”.
In addition Frelimo operates a policy of “renewal in continuity”: this means that 60 per cent of the outgoing Central Committee should be re-elected and 40 per cent will be new blood.
On Saturday night President Filipe Nyusi, who is chairing the Congress, announced that the Central Committee election results would be announced at 09.00 on Sunday morning – but it was not until after 13.00 that the Congress delegates were called into the hall to hear the announcement from the election commission.
The Central Committee consists of 180 full members and 18 candidate members. In addition, all 11 provincial Frelimo first secretaries sit on the committee ex oficio, as do the general secretaries of the party’s three “social organisations” – the Mozambican Women’s Organisation (OMM), the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM) and the Association of Veterans of the National Liberation Struggle (ACLLN).
119 of the full Central Committee members had already been elected in the provincial Frelimo conferences held prior to the Congress. Their names were read out and the Congress approved them unanimously.
The election commission then gave the names and votes of the 61 people elected, or re-elected, to the Central Committee on Saturday.
As expected, the highest number of votes in the continuity section for men went to three veterans of the liberation war – Marcelino dos Santos, Alberto Chipande and Feliciano Gundana. In the women’s continuity section, the highest votes went to the chairperson of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Veronica Macamo, the head of the Frelimo parliamentary group, Margarida Talapa, and the Minister of State Administration. Carmelita Namashalua.
Among the newcomers to the Central Committee are several government members, including Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario, Interior Minister Jaime Monteiro, Transport Minister Carlos Mesquita, the Minister of the Sea, Inland Waters and Fisheries, Agostinho Mondlane, and the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Welfare, Cidalia Chauque.
Other figures who entered the Central Committee included prominent businessman Bruno Morgado, and the director of the government’s press office (GABINFO), Emilia Moiane.
Those who failed in their bids for re-election to the Committee included Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, the Minister of Youth and Sports Alberto Nkutumula, Deputy Labour Minister Oswaldo Petersburgo, and the outspoken former information minister Teodato Hunguana.
In the provincial conferences, several provincial governors failed in their attempts to gain a seat on the central committee. They included the governors of Nampula, Victor Borges, of Zambezia, Abdul Razak and of Sofala, Helena Taipo. The mayor of Maputo, David Simango, also failed in his bid for re-election.
Former President Armando Guebuza and former Finance Minister Manuel Chang, the two men most closely associated with the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”, the illicit government guarantees for loans of over two billion dollars taken out by three security related companies from European banks, were not re-elected to the Central Committee.
Neither of them stood for election – but plans were mooted to award Guebuza an honorary position in the party, just as his predecessor, Joaquim Chissano, was appointed Honorary President of the Party at a Frelimo Congress in 2007.
The Congress is running very late and is certain to continue into the small hours of Monday morning, when the question of an honorary position for Guebuza will be settled.
Leave a Reply
Be the First to Comment!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.