Mozambique Elections: Renamo promises to revitalise the industrial sector

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Mozambique Elections: Renamo promises to revitalise the industrial sector

4:14 CAT | 26 Aug 2024

Screen grab: Manuel de Araujo / Facebook

The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the country’s main opposition party, promised this Saturday to revitalise the state’s industrial sector if it wins the October 9 elections, highlighting job creation and education as key points.

“We want to win to recover the economy. (…) We will seek foreign investment (…) to create jobs and not an investment that only serves to stay in their pockets, as Manuel Chang did,” said Manuel de Araújo, Renamo’s candidate for governor of Zambézia province, at the start of the party’s electoral campaign in Quelimane, central Mozambique.

Manuel de Araújo, who is also the mayor of Quelimane, accused the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), which has ruled the country since 1975, of having destroyed the Mozambican economy after independence.

“During colonial times, water from the Zambezi River was used to irrigate sugarcane fields and that is why there were two sugar factories [in the centre]: one in Marromeu (Sofala) and another in Luambo (Zambézia). The Luambo factory was the most modern in Africa and who destroyed the factory? Frelimo,” de Araújo declared.

The politician says Mozambique now needs to enter upon a new chapter, with a political project that prioritizes education and employment, especially for the youth.

“We want to create polytechnic institutes so that young people who finish the 12th grade can learn to do something. (…) Today, we have unemployed graduates in our city because of the type of education we have. We want to recover that education,” de Araújo said to applause from the thousands of Renamo supporters who attended the rally in the centre of Quelimane.

The official launch of Renamo’s campaign was led by party secretary general Clementina Bomba, since Ossufo Momade, the party’s presidential candidate, is out of the country.

Renamo has been led since January 17, 2019, by Ossufo Momade, 63, who was elected after the death of the party’s historic leader, Afonso Dhlakama (1953-2018).

Ossufo Momade had already run for President of the Republic, with the support of Renamo, in the 2019 elections, coming in second place with 21.88%, in a vote that re-elected Filipe Nyusi as head of state, with 73% of the votes, now constitutionally barred from running for another term.

Mozambique will hold general elections on 9 October, in a ballot that includes presidential, legislative, provincial assembly and provincial governor elections.

More than 17 million voters are registered to vote, including 333,839 registered abroad, with a total of 37 political parties competing in the legislative and provincial elections, according to data from the National Electoral Commission (CNE).

In addition to Momade, the following candidates are running for the Ponta Vermelha (the official residence of the head of state in Mozambique): Daniel Chapo, supported by Frelimo; Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third parliamentary force; and Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the extra-parliamentary Podemos and the Democratic Revolution.

Source: Lusa