MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS: President calls for ‘convincing’ Frelimo win in October elections – Watch

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MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS: President calls for ‘convincing’ Frelimo win in October elections – Watch

4:09 CAT | 01 Apr 2024

Photo: Jherson Fernandes / Facebook

The president of Mozambique and of its governing Frelimo party, Filipe Nyusi, on Monday called on its patry members to work for an “expressive, clear and convincing victory” in the general elections scheduled for 9 October, at a meeting of the national council of Frelimo’s youth wing.

“Prepare for an expressive, clear and convincing victory for Frelimo in the general, presidential, legislative and provincial assembly elections on 9 October,” said Nyusi at the third session of the national council ofFrelimo’s Youth League, the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), which was taking place on Monday in Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo.

Nyusi insisted that victory in the October general elections – in which he can no longer stand as a presidential candidate in because he has reached the constitutional limit of two terms as head of state – is the “top priority at the moment” for Frelimo.

The president said that party members should work “without fear of probable questioning when they are blessed with victories” – a reference to past opposition claims of electoral fraud – emphasising that the goal of a “historic victory” in these elections can only be achieved with “sacrifice, work, unity and vigilance” and calling for “unity” and “concord” from Frelimo’s youth wing in the run-up to the elections.

The OJM national council opens a week of meetings of Frelimo organs, preceding the ordinary session of the party’s central committee, its highest body between congresses, on 5 and 6 April.

However, it is not yet clear whether the political commission will bring to the central committee meeting, for a vote, a list of prospective successors for Nyusi as candidate for Mozambique president in the October elections.

Fernando Faustino, the secretary-general of Frelimo’s veterans’ wing, the Association of Combatants of the National Liberation Struggle (ACLLIN), which is also meeting this week in Matola, said on 18 March that the selection of a Frelimo candidate for the presidential elections is not on the agenda of the next central committee meeting.

“As far as I know, on 5 and 6 March, the central committee will meet and already has its agenda for that meeting and, as far as I know, the question of the succession or presidential candidates is not on it,” Faustino told journalists in the city of Nampula.

He dismissed criticism that the process of choosing a Frelimo candidate for the October presidential elections is dragging on, stressing that “Frelimo is organising itself in time” for the elections.

“I think that’s relative, how long does it take?” asked the ACLLIN secretary-general rhetorically, while acknowleding that “it’s not an easy process.”

Faustino argued that the party has to select a candidate who matches the aspirations of the country’s population and who has proven competence.

Lusa tried unsuccessfully to get clarification from Frelimo’s information department about the agenda for the central committee meeting.

The current Frelimo leader and president, Nyusi, is constitutionally barred from running for office again because he is serving a second term at the head of state, having been elected in 2015 and 2019.

Mozambique is to hold its seventh presidential and legislative elections on 9 October, as well as the second for provincial governors and the fourth for provincial assemblies.

Source: Lusa