Mozambique: 160 Renamo supporters change sides, join Frelimo ruling party

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Mozambique: 160 Renamo supporters change sides, join Frelimo ruling party

3:41 CAT | 07 Jul 2020

FiILE PHOTO: For illustration purposes only. [Frelimo Manica Facebook, June 21, 2020]

Renamo considered on Tuesday the public presentation of 160 members of the main opposition party in Mozambique declaring their affiliation to Frelimo, the ruling party, as contrary to “political pluralism”.

The 160 militants of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) were presented at a public ceremony over the weekend at the administrative post in Dombe, Manica province, central Mozambique.

The act was directed by the first secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), Tomás Chithlango.

In a statement today to Lusa, the spokesman for Renamo, José Manteigas, considered the action contrary to political pluralism, accusing the ruling party of implementing a strategy of weakening the opposition.

“This kind of action is counterproductive, because it is a way to kill political pluralism, through the weakening of the opposition,” José Manteigas said.

The spokesman for the main opposition party described the move of party activists and their militancy to the ruling party as strange, at a time when Renamo and the Frelimo government are involved in implementing the Peace and Public Reconciliation Agreement.

“It is strange to observe such events, when the priority should be peace and national reconciliation,” said José Manteigas.

The public presentation of militants of parties declaring their support to opposing political parties is normal in periods of electoral campaigning in Mozambique, but it is not common outside the electoral processes.

The Renamo spokesman said that, officially, those members who left the party did not communicate their decision to the organisation.

Renamo leader Ossufo Momade and Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi signed the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement on August 6, 2019, providing for the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of the main opposition party’s armed branch.

After a symbolic start last year, DDR was paralysed for several months and resumed on June 4 and will involve 5,000 members of Renamo’s armed branch.

Since then 38 former guerrillas in Savane, 251 former guerrillas in Chibabava and another 303 in Dondo, in the central province of Sofala, have been covered.

Source: Lusa