Mozambique Elections: Frelimo candidate needs to be discussed – Former President

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Mozambique Elections: Frelimo candidate needs to be discussed – Former President

12:25 CAT | 05 Apr 2024

Screen grab; Limpopo Channel Moz

Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano said on Friday that the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) must give “the necessary impetus” to the debate on the choice of a new candidate for the presidency.

Frelimo must give the “necessary impetus to this debate” on the ruling party’s future candidate for the presidential elections on 9 October, said Chissano, speaking to public broadcaster Televisão de Moçambique.

The former Mozambican head of state (1986-2005) was speaking on the sidelines of the Frelimo Central Committee meeting, which began today in the city of Matola.

It’s a “national debate. What will come out of this [Central Committee meeting] will provoke a lot of reflection” in the country.

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Armando Guebuza, also a former head of state, said that the issue of choosing Frelimo’s future presidential candidate was unavoidable.

“Naturally, I think so,” said Guebuza without elaborating on the subject. It will be debated.

Óscar Monteiro, a historic Frelimo member, demanded that the succession of the current president of Mozambique and of Frelimo, Filipe Nyusi, to the presidency be included on the agenda of the meeting of the organisation’s veterans, which took place on Thursday.

“There is an elephant in this room (…) the succession to power, we are too late and we risk victory [in next October’s general elections] if we continue on this path,” said Óscar Monteiro.

Monteiro was addressing the president of Mozambique and Frelimo directly, at the start of the meeting of the National Council of the Association of National Liberation Struggle Combatants (ACLLIN), a political arm of the ruling party.

READ: Mozambique Elections: Frelimo stalwart demands discussion on president’s succession

Also on Thursday, Filipe Nyusi said that the Frelimo Central Committee meeting should be debated “without sensationalism”.

“This is not the time to seek individual protagonism, which only serves to fuel sensationalist debates,” said Filipe Nyusi during his closing speech at the ACLLIN meeting.

READ: Mozambique Elections: Choosing Frelimo candidate ‘a priority’ – Nyusi | Watch

The meeting of Frelimo’s Central Committee that kicked off today has generated expectations of a possible debate around the succession of Filipe Nyusi as a candidate for president in the October elections.

The agenda announced late this evening by the party’s Political Commission for the Central Committee meeting makes no reference to the debate on the succession of Nyusi, who is constitutionally barred from running again for the presidency because he is currently serving his second term at the head of state, having been elected in 2015 and 2019.

Source: Lusa