Mozambique: Frelimo Secretariats urged to prepare election victories – AIM report

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Mozambique: Frelimo Secretariats urged to prepare election victories – AIM report

9:34 CAT | 16 Nov 2022

All photos: Frelimo Moçambique

The General Secretary of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party, Roque Silva, on Sunday challenged the newly elected members of the Secretariat of the Party’s Central Committee and of the Provincial Secretariats to work speedily to prepare a Frelimo victory in the 2023 municipal and 2024 general elections.

The first step, he said, must be to set up election preparation offices in all the provinces.

Victory in the elections, said Silva, is “a patriotic imperative and a question of sovereignty, so that Frelimo may continue the mission which history has given to it, as a Party”.

Speaking at the close of an induction seminar for the secretariat members, held at the Party School in the southern city of Matola he claimed there is no serious political alternative to Frelimo, with a project for a society committed to a future of wellbeing for all Mozambicans.

“The political cycle which is beginning now, poses great challenges for our Party, and the centre of gravity of these challenges lies in preparing our victory in the municipal and general elections”.

Silva pointed out that the government has approved the creation of 12 new municipalities, and it was now urgent that Frelimo ensure that its party structures are operational in all these new units.

“We must strengthen the performance of our party, in the interest of consolidating victory in the municipalities already managed by Frelimo and, even more important, to recover those municipalities which, for the time being, are in the hands of the opposition”, declared Silva.

The Secretariats, he said, have the task of guaranteeing the day-to-day management of the Party machinery. To ensure their effectiveness, Silva added, they must take decisions that implement the directives and guidelines of higher party bodies, while monitoring and supporting the actions of the lower bodies.

He stressed that the Secretariats must respect the principle that decision taking is preceded by free discussion, characterized by openness and tolerance towards divergent viewpoints and opinions expressed by the members.

But once a Secretariat has taken a decision, it is binding on all members of that Secretariat.

“Members of Frelimo Secretariat are individually and collectively bound by decisions taken by the body they belong to”, Silva said. “Hence they should implement the decisions jointly”.

Observance of this principle, he insisted, is the cornerstone for cohesion and the defence of discipline within Party bodies.

A second principle concerned planning and budgeting: Silva said the activities of the Secretariats must rest on realistic plans with clear objectives and measurable targets.

Silva believed that the seminar provided each of the participants with the tools needed for the successful performance of their tasks.

He noted that, in today’s world, rapid and profound changes are under way with an impact on all spheres of humanity. These changes are exacerbated by the ease provided by the new information technologies which make it possible for anyone to spread instantaneously information of public utility with a simple click on a computer mouse.

But the same technology also allows the spread of distortions, gossip and slanders, readily consumed without any verification or checking of sources.

Mozambican opposition parties were among those who abused social media in this way, claimed Silva. “Lacking any constructive arguments, without any ideas for the reconstruction of the country which some of them spent years destroying, we have, unfortunately, witnessed some of our fellow citizens discharge their energies into virulent attacks on social media against Frelimo and its leaders”.

He urged Frelimo members to become more fully involved on social media, deconstructing narratives which seek to deceive the less well-informed.

Vehicles for Provincial First Secretaries, members of the Central Committee Secretariat

On the sidelines of the induction seminar, President Filipe Nyusi, in his capacity as President of Frelimo, offered each provincial First Secretary and each member of the Central Committee Secretariat luxury vehicles costed at 155.1 million meticais (about 2.4 million US dollars, at the current exchange rate), according to a report in Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.

The cars are 11 Toyota Land Cruiser Prado VX and six Nissan Patrol V8s.

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When he delivered the vehicles, on Saturday, Nyusi said the money came from efforts made by members and sympathisers of Frelimo.

Nyusi added that, in future, the distribution of vehicles would also cover District First Secretaries, and the General Secretaries of the Party’s social organisations.

Source: AIM