Mozambique: Portugal willing to help mediate crisis; maybe not needed – Rangel

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Mozambique: Portugal willing to help mediate crisis; maybe not needed – Rangel

6:19 CAT | 16 Jan 2025

A demonstrator shouts slogans at the edge of Independence Square, where the inauguration ceremony of Mozambique's fifth president, Daniel Chapo (not seen), took place, in Maputo, Mozambique, 15 January 2025.[Photo: Estevao Chavisso/Lusa]

The Portuguese minister of foreign affairs, Paulo Rangel, said on Wednesday in Maputo that Portugal is available to help mediate the post-election crisis in Mozambique, but believes that this will not be necessary.

“I think that the situation may even dispense with such help, or at least formal mediation, because all the parties sincerely seem to me, from what I can witness, especially now, already here – but before that too, through contacts I had been making – that there really is a will to turn this crisis into an opportunity. And that is something that gives us, as I said this morning, hope,” said Rangel.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday afternoon after the inauguration ceremony of Daniel Chapo as Mozambique’s fifth president, which was marked by renewed clashes between the police and supporters of presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who does not recognise the election results, Paulo Rangel recognised that Portugal has a “special position” due to its “deep historical and cultural ties”.

“We obviously have a helping role. The European Union has been very much in tune with Portugal’s positions. Just look, the communiqués that have been issued are all exactly along the same lines and we are obviously an important interlocutor. The CPLP [Community of Portuguese Language Countries] can also play a role,” said Rangel.

The head of Portuguese diplomacy also confirmed that he plans to meet with Venâncio Mondlane, who has called for successive stoppages and demonstrations against the results of the Mozambican general elections on 9 October, during his stay in Maputo.

“We’ll certainly talk to him too, that’s planned. It’s planned to talk to everyone and so Portugal’s predisposition is always to help. We can’t substitute for each other, obviously, in any way, we don’t want to interfere in Mozambique’s sovereignty, but we think that there is an opportunity here to create an agenda of consensus, of reforms on the one hand institutional and on the other hand certainly economic and social,” he said.

On Tuesday, presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane accused the Portuguese minister of foreign affairs of bias and of ‘manipulating’ public opinion when he said that he had been following the post-election process in Mozambique.

Questioned by journalists about these statements, Paulo Rangel dismissed them, looking at them ‘with great fair play’.

“I understand that in this context people express their opinions freely and, therefore, Portugal’s objective, as I said from the beginning, is a very constructive posture, attitude, to facilitate dialogue, to create (…) the willingness to help, if that is wanted and if that is necessary, and, therefore, it is with this constructive, responsible posture, of a brother country, that we are here. And so the little, I would say, day-to-day things don’t interfere with that,” he emphasised.

Paulo Rangel insisted that in this political context, marked by demonstrations and post-election tensions that have led to more than 300 deaths and 600 people shot since 21 October, “dialogue is needed from this moment on”.

“Which has already begun, but which now obviously has to be given a new lease of life, inclusive dialogue with all the opposition forces and with all the protagonists of the opposition and that this dialogue should lead first of all to national reconciliation, because this very traumatic process has left some wounds, so this is a point (…) for there to be a set of reforms here that can be discussed in consensus and that will relaunch a functioning democracy that is basically recognised by everyone,” he said.

He also recognised, on the other hand, that the Portuguese government has “always pointed out” the need for a “reform of the electoral law”, which has also been accepted by all the Mozambican players.

Source: Lusa