Maputo: Comiche and Samora Machel Junior confirmed as Frelimo candidates

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Maputo: Comiche and Samora Machel Junior confirmed as Frelimo candidates

2:06 CAT | 15 Jul 2018

Eenas Comiche (right) and Samora Machel Junior are competing to be the party’s candidate for Mayor of the capital in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October.

The Maputo City First Secretary of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party, Francisco Mabjaia, on Saturday publicly announced the names of two people competing to be the party’s candidate for Mayor of the capital in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October.

According to a report on Radio Mozambique, the names Mabjaia announced are those of Eneas Comiche and Samora Machel Junior.

Comiche has a long and distinguished record of service for the Mozambican state and for Maputo. In the early 1990s, he was Governor of the Bank of Mozambique and then Finance Minister.

In 2003 he was elected Mayor of Maputo, where he had a reputation for honesty and for fighting against corruption. This made him enemies, and, although Comiche was popular among the Maputo electorate, Frelimo did not select him as its candidate in the subsequent mayoral election in 2008.

Currently, Comiche is the head of the Budget and Planning Commission in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and a member of the Frelimo Political Commission. He is now 79 years old, and his age could tell against him in the inner party election.

Samora Machel Junior (“Samito”) is the son of the country’s first President, Samora Machel, and of Josina Machel, a heroine of the liberation war, who died in a Tanzanian hospital in 1973.

Mabjaia announced the two names at a ceremony preparing the celebrations later this month of the 50th anniversary of the Frelimo Second Congress, held in 1968, in the liberated area of Matchedje, in the northern province of Niassa, as the independence war continued to rage.

“Samora Machel Junior is on the list of candidates that came from the urban districts and comrade Eneas Comiche is one of the Frelimo cadres who is also on the list”, said Mabjaia.

Mabjaia denied rumours that the election of Frelimo candidates for the Maputo Municipal Assembly has been paralysed due to alleged dissension within the party organisation in the capital. Instead, the choice of candidates for the assembly, and of the person who will be “head of the list” (and thus Mayor, if Frelimo wins), is continuing.

“I can assure you”, Mabjaia sad, “that inside the party we are implementing our activities to prepare for the municipal elections, in accordance with the calendar, and at no time have we paralysed our activities”.

The Saturday ceremony included a tribute to the first President of Frelimo, Eduardo Mondlane, which was witnessed by the Mondlane family, represented by Mondlane’s son, Eduardo Mondlane Junior.

“I would like once more to thank Frelimo and the Mozambican people in general for the honour granted to the Mondlane family today”, he said.

Source: AIM