Mozambique Elections: Renamo leader confirms ‘unconditional’ support from 8 parties

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Mozambique Elections: Renamo leader confirms ‘unconditional’ support from 8 parties

9:31 CAT | 20 Jul 2024

File photo: DW

The president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), candidate for President of the Republic of Mozambique, Ossufo Momade, confirmed on Friday that eight extra-parliamentary parties are supporting his candidacy in the October elections, without ‘any conditions’.

‘This week we were contacted by several extra-parliamentary parties expressing interest in supporting our candidacy for the presidential elections. We received about eight parties, namely PUN, CDU, Unamo, PCM, Pemo, UDM, Padelemo and PPLM, who without any conditionality decided to support our candidacy for the presidential elections,’ announced Ossufo Momade.

‘We thank these brothers of ours for their initiative and express our openness to all those who want change in the country to join us so that no tyrant can enslave us,’ added the president of Renamo, the largest opposition party, in a message on his official Facebook account.

Ossufo Momade is the candidate supported by Renamo in October’s general elections for the post of president, following his election at the congress held in May, which also reappointed him to the leadership of the largest opposition party.

The party leader had already run for presidency, with Renamo’s support, in the 2019 elections, coming second with 21.88%, in a vote that re-elected Filipe Nyusi as head of state, with 73% of the vote.

Lusa reported today that the presidents of eight small Mozambican political parties, without parliamentary representation, approved a joint resolution of ‘full support’ for Ossufo Momade’s candidacy for President of the Republic in the October general elections.

‘To give full support, in all its dimensions, to the candidacy of Ossufo Momade for president in the elections scheduled for 9 October 2024,’ reads the resolution, adopted at a meeting of party leaders on Thursday and to which Lusa had access today.

The position of support involves the National Unity Party (PUN), the Ecological Party of Mozambique (Pemo), the Mozambican National Union (Unamo), the Liberal Progress Party of Mozambique (PPLM), the Central Party of Mozambique (PCM), the Congress of United Democrats (CDU), the Liberal Democratic Party of Mozambique (Padalemo) and the Union of Democrats of Mozambique (UDM).

The CDU and Pemo parties, according to data from the National Electoral Commission (CNE), were part of the first agreement, in April, to form the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD), which in turn supports the candidacy of Venâncio Mondlane, a former Renamo member and MP, for President of the Republic.

However, both parties withdrew from this coalition, according to the CNE, without this change being duly communicated, one of the reasons that led the electoral body to reject CAD’s candidacies for the legislative elections, provincial governors and provincial assemblies this Thursday.

On 24 June, the Constitutional Council approved the candidacies of Daniel Chapo, supported by the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), Ossufo Momade, supported by Renamo, Lutero Simango, supported by the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the third largest parliamentary force, and Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the CAD, for the post of President of the Republic.

The presidential elections will take place at the same time as the legislative elections and the elections of governors and provincial assemblies.

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

Source: Lusa