Frelimo demands Renamo disarmament before October elections – Mozambique

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Frelimo demands Renamo disarmament before October elections – Mozambique

1:12 CAT | 20 Jul 2018

File photo: Lusa

Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique, on Thursday demanded that the armed wing of Renamo, the main opposition party, disarm before the October 10 municipal elections, so that the electoral process can take place in an orderly manner.

“The vote must occur without arms [in possession of political parties],” Frelimo spokesman in the Assembly of the Republic Edmundo Galiza Matos Júnior told the media, and local must take place in a climate of order, transparency and justice.

Political parties and civil society together face the challenge of assimilating the changes introduced into local legislation in order to consciously exercise their political rights, he added.

Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) party chief, Ivone Soares, said that the legal amendments approved on Thursday created conditions for the municipal elections to be held on October 10.

“The approval by consensus of the legislative revision of the municipal package makes us happy and is reason for satisfaction for all,” she said. The Mozambican head of state Filipe Nyusi and Renamo’s interim leader, Ossufo Momade, are expected to continue the peace-building dialogue in the country, following the understandings reached in parliament, she added.

Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM) spokesman Fernando Bismarque said that his party was in favour of the amendments to municipal legislation because they were necessary for peace in the country. “Within the scope of the interest for peace, the MDM voted in favour of the revision of the municipal legislation,” he said.

The legal changes were proposed by the Mozambican government and aim to adopting the decentralization revisions of the Constitution of the Republic approved by parliament in May.

Among the legal innovations are highlighted the introduction of the head-to-list system for the election of mayors and the replacement of these according to the sequence of the list of candidates in case of mayoral impediment. Interim elections will cease to take place in the event of the definitive impediment of the mayor, as was the case before legislative amendments were adopted.

Source: Lusa