Mozambique: New Secretary General for MDM – AIM report

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Mozambique: New Secretary General for MDM – AIM report

10:14 CAT | 12 Apr 2022

Photo: MDM - Gabinete de Informação on Facebook

The National Council of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the country’s second largest opposition party, meeting in the central city of Chimoio, on Sunday night appointed Leonor de Sousa as its general secretary.

She replaces Jose Domingos, who had held the post since 2018. The 58 year old Sousa has been a member of the MDM since the party was founded, in 2009.

“We are going to make the MDM a more dynamic and participatory party”, she told reporters, immediately after her appointment.

The main challenge facing the party, she said, were the preparations for the municipal elections scheduled for October 2023, and the presidential and parliamentary elections the following year.

Currently, the MDM only controls one municipality, the central city of Beira. It lost its former stronghold of Quelimane in 2018, when the mayor, Manuel de Araujo, defected to the larger opposition party, Renamo. The MDM insists that it will run full slates of candidates for the assemblies in all 53 municipalities.

Addressing the meeting, the MDM President Lutero Simango called for an end to hostilities within the party. “Differences of opinion should not mean contradiction or conflict, and should not be used to foment a climate of internal hostilities or to feed divisions”, he said, cited in Monday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”.

One of the purposes of the National Council meeting, said Simango, was to cement cohesion “on the basis of a single agenda, putting the MDM in first place”.

The meeting brought together 150 delegates and guests from all the provinces and elected a new 14 member National Council.

Much of Simango’s opening speech was a denunciation of what he called the “criminal” governance of the ruling Frelimo Party. He blamed all the economic and social difficulties of the country on Frelimo.

“These are problems that result from the bad governance of our country, generalised corruption and theft from the public treasury, and commissions to facilitate and win tenders”, said Simango.

“This is all the model of Frelimo’s governance”, he claimed. “They can change people, they can bring the best people they have, but nothing will really change because the system and model of governance remains the same, based on Frelimo”.

That model was exhausted and had to be changed, said Simango, in order to end the Frelimo political dominance over the Mozambican state, to the exclusion of other forces.

The MDM was founded by Simango’s younger brother and mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango, but he died of illness in February 2021. Lutero Simango was elected to lead the party at a Congress held in December.

Source: AIM