Maputo: Municipal Assembly ousts six MDM members who left to join Renamo

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Maputo: Municipal Assembly ousts six MDM members who left to join Renamo

12:39 CAT | 06 Sep 2018

Photo: O País

The Maputo City Council yesterday removed six former members of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) who joined the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party in Mozambique.

“At one point, these members called into question the proper functioning of our plenary, setting up a kind of small bench that was not in line with the precepts of the house’s operation,” Augusto Mbazo, chief whip of the MDM , the third political formation of the country, said in the Municipal Assembly.

Mabazo was speaking to the press at the end of the session which voted to deprive the six members of their mandate, considering that, in light of the law, they lost their right to belong to the Municipal Assembly by appearing on the list of candidates for a party different from the one under whose aegis they were elected.

Of the 56 Frelimo Liberation Front (MPF) and MDM members who attended the session, five abstained and the other 51 all voted in favour of the decision.

Ishmael Nhacucue, one of the members removed yesterday, said that the decision was illegal and based on a misinterpretation of the legislation.

“We are going to appeal the decision before the Administrative Tribunal” he said. “This resolution is unlawful.” The article quoted at no time addresses exactly the issue of the candidacy list.

The six Municipal Assembly members removed yesterday are part of a country-wide group that recently announced their departure from the MDM to join Renamo in a process led by Venâncio Mondlane, who was removed by the National Election Commission from the October 10 election race for having resigned from the municipal assembly of Maputo to occupy the chair of deputy in the Assembly of the Republic (AR).

Mondlane, who was presented as Renamo’s head of list, appealed to the Constitutional Council, but the body denied the appeal lodged by the main opposition party, alleging lack of procedural legitimacy.

Renamo boycotted the 2013 municipal elections in protest at the electoral law in force at the time, but returned to participate in local elections this year, when it took part in, and won, the mayoral by-election in Nampula.

Elections in all 53 Mozambican municipalities are scheduled for October 10

Source: Lusa