MDM takes revenge on Venancio Mondlane – AIM report

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MDM takes revenge on Venancio Mondlane – AIM report

11:25 CAT | 22 Aug 2018

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Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE), meeting on Monday night, disqualified Venancio Mondlane, the mayoral candidate for Maputo city of the main opposition party, the rebel movement Renamo, from running in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October.

The motion to disqualify Mondlane came from his former party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). Mondlane owes his political career to the MDM. He became the rapporteur of the MDM parliamentary group, and was one of the best known public faces of the MDM.

When he ran as the MDM candidate for mayor of Maputo in the 2013 municipal elections, Mondlane slashed the majority of the ruling Frelimo Party n the capital from 85 to 58 per cent. He was so popular with the MDM members in Maputo that they twice elected him unanimously as the mayoral candidate for this year.

On the first occasion, in October 2017, Mondlane gladly accepted nomination. But then came a meeting of the MDM National Council in Beira in April, at which Mondlane was not re-elected to the party’s Political Commission.

This seems to have soured his view of the MDM. In June, the MDM Maputo membership again selected Mondlane as its mayoral candidate – but this time he spurned the nomination, declaring that the announcement “is false and it doesn’t come from me. It does not have my consent. It is null and void”.

By this time, Mondlane had been in secretive discussions with Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama. After Dhlakama’s death in May, those negotiations continued, and in late June he defected from the MDM to Renamo, and resigned his parliamentary seat. A few weeks later, Renamo announced that Mondlane would be its mayoral candidate in Maputo.

The MDM has now taken its revenge, by invoking a clause in the municipal election legislation which states that nobody who resigns from a municipal body will be eligible for the next round of municipal elections. Mondlane was elected to the Maputo Municipal Assembly in 2013, but resigned this position in order to become a member of parliament.

The MDM argued that this meant his name must be removed from the Renamo list of candidates, and those members of the CNE appointed by Frelimo were happy to support the MDM. Not all the MDM appointees on the CNE took the same view – one refused to support the official position of the party.

When the CNE took a vote, nine members (appointed by Frelimo, the MDM and some from civil society organisations) were in favour of disqualifying Mondlane, and seven members (five appointed by Renamo, plus two from the MDM and civil society) were against. The CNE chairperson, Abdul Carimo, abstained.

Renamo CNE member Fernando Mazanga protested to reporters that the MDM complaint and the CNE decision violate the Mozambican constitution. However, all versions of the municipal electoral law since 1998 include the same provision barring people who have resigned from municipal bodies from standing in the next elections, and up until now nobody had argued that this was unconstitutional.

Mazanga also protested that the MDM was being hypocritical, since one of its own candidates, Silverio Ronguane, is in exactly the same position as Mondlane. Ronguane was elected to the Matola municipal assembly in 2013, and then resigned to take up a seat in parliament. Ronguane is now the MDM candidate for mayor of Matola.

The difference is simply that nobody has protested against Ronguane. The CNE acted against Mondlane because it received a formal request from the MDM. Renamo has not requested the disqualification of Ronguane. Mazanga suggested that the MDM should show some consistency by withdrawing Ronguane’s name from its Matola list.

Renamo clearly intends to appeal – first to the CNE, and then to the Constitutional Council, the highest body on matters of constitutional and electoral law.

Mondlane himself, in a Tuesday Facebook post, said the CNE decision “was to some extent very important and even beneficial for the maturing of the democratic rule of law. It puts to the test the whole chain of appeal and the justice system as a single cohesive body”.

He confirmed that Renamo and its lawyers will indeed take the matter to the Constitutional Council.

Mondlane called on his followers to stay calm, since nothing had yet been lost. He noted that various studies on the Mozambican justice system have regarded the Constitutional Council as “one of the greatest moral, ethical and legal and constitutional reserves of Mozambique”.

The CNE has taken no final decision on the fate of the list of candidates from AJUDEM (Youth Association for the Development of Mozambique), which is running Samora Machel Junior (“Samito”), the son of the country’s first President, for mayor of Maputo.

Four candidates on the AJUDEM list for the municipal assembly want their names removed. Some say they never consented to stand, but the AJUDEM leadership believes they have come under pressure from Frelimo officials to drop out. If their names are removed, the AJUDEM list may not have the legally required number of names, and the whole list would then be disaqualified.

The CNE has told the four that they must follow the legal provision for withdrawal, which means they must first inform AJUDEM of their intention to quit, and must present a declaration to this effect duly signed and recognised by a public notary. They have ten days in which to do this.

According to Tuesday’s issue of the independent newsheet “Mediafax”, by Monday none of them had contacted AJUDEM to start the process of removing their names.

Source: AIM