Mozambique Elections: No alliance with Portugal’s far-right Chega – Mondlane

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Mozambique Elections: No alliance with Portugal’s far-right Chega – Mondlane

1:11 CAT | 19 Aug 2024

Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/Lusa

Mozambican presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane on Monday ruled out any alliance with Portugal’s far-right Chega party, saying, following criticism from Frelimo, Mozambique’s ruling party, that he met officials of the far-right party in July in a courtesy meeting.

“[I made] an official visit to the Portuguese parliament, and I am obliged to hold courtesy meetings with all the parties that make up the parliament. That was it, absolutely. I did not go to Chega specifically to form an alliance, to make a pact, no,” Venâncio Mondlane said in an interview with Lusa in Maputo.

On August 1, the leader of the Mozambican Youth Organization (OJM), the youth wing of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), Silva Livone, accused presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane of meeting with “colonialists” during his visit to Portugal, referring to Chega.

“He went to Europe there and he met with a party which is those colonialists. And there in Europe he said that when he wins the elections he will bring those people back and apologize to the colonists for having expelled them from here. Is that what you want?” the then-secretary general of the OJM asked a meeting of Frelimo supporters.

Venâncio said he does not regret meeting Chega’s vice-president, Diogo Pacheco de Amorim, in Lisbon on July 23, adding that he would meet officials of the party again “normally”, during a new visit to the Portuguese parliament.

“I want to be President of the Republic, I have to assume a position of state (…). The position of state is that you do not speak [only] to people with whom you agree, you do not speak to people with whom you have ideological or doctrinal convergence of any kind, you speak to everyone who represents, who is recognized in a given state,” the presidential candidate stated.

During the interview, the politician, who during this visit to Lisbon also met with the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, also said that he expressed interest in meeting Prime Minister Luís Montenegro, while still awaiting an adjustment of agendas, highlighting, in the meantime, the strategic partnership between Mozambique and Portugal.

“I can even say that for us, like Mozambique, [Portugal] is also a strategic partner for access to the countries that make up the European Union,” he said.

Mozambique will hold general, presidential, legislative and provincial elections on October 9. The current President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, will not run in these elections, having already reached the constitutional limit of two terms.

In addition to Venâncio Mondlane, Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power); Ossufo Momade, supported by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party); and Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third parliamentary force, are also running for the position.

Source: Lusa