Mozambique: Ten candidates compete for leadership of Renamo next week

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Mozambique: Ten candidates compete for leadership of Renamo next week

3:09 CAT | 10 May 2024

File photo: Lusa

Around Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) 700 delegates will next week elect the new president of the country’s largest opposition party from a list of ten candidates, including the current leader, who by convention also runs for President of the Republic.

“Historically, the party president is also the party’s candidate. But the party body, in this case the congress, can decide to change this principle and this does not violate the statutes. But it can also maintain the principle,” Ivan Mazanga, a member of the Renamo congress organisation group, told Lusa today.

A total of 10 members, including the current party leader, Ossufo Momade, presented their candidacies for the presidency of Renamo, whose election will take place at the congress to be held on May 15 and 16 in Alto Molócue, in Zambézia province, central Mozambique.

In addition to Ossufo Momade, who has led Renamo since the death of historical leader Afonso Dhlakama (2018), André Magibire, former secretary general; Anselmo Vitor, head of the training department; Ivone Soares, deputy and former head of parliamentary bench; Alfredo Magumisse, member of the political commission; Elias Dhlakama, brother of Afonso Dhlakama; Juliano Picardo, president of the provincial council of Tete; Pedro Murema, member of the provincial council of the city of Maputo; Hermínio Morais, member of the political commission; and Venâncio Mondlane, deputy and head of the list for Maputo in recent local elections, also presented their candidacies for party leadership.

The congress, which will have around 700 representatives, will also elect the new Renamo bodies, whose mandate expired on January 17.

“The congress delegates who will participate due to their functions are around 300,” said Ivan Mazanga, adding that the rest are elected at district and provincial level.

In April, the Renamo National Council approved the profile of the party’s candidate for the October presidential elections, demanding, among the requirements, 15 years of uninterrupted activism from the candidates.

Venâncio Mondlane then presented a precautionary measure to the Constitutional Council (CC) demanding the annulment of this profile, a matter that, according to him, has not yet had an outcome.

“The CC did not disapprove the request (…) The CC felt that there were no conditions to make a decision without physically deliberating the Renamo National Council. But even you, who are journalists, did not have access to this deliberation, because it was not shared with the members, but this is an open matter. As long as the party shares the deliberation with its members, we will submit an appeal,” Mondlane said on Tuesday after presenting his documents to Renamo headquarters.

The current leader of the party has been externally and internally criticised due for alleged inaction in the face of alleged irregularities in the Mozambican municipal elections last October, and has also been accused of negligence regarding the situation of party guerrillas demobilised under the peace agreement with the government.

The Renamo National Council meeting, which preceded the elective congress, was marked by skirmishes between party security guards and a group of young Venâncio Mondlane supporters in the early hours of the day.

The young people were trying to demonstrate at the door of the room in the Hotel Glória in Maputo where the Renamo National Council meeting was taking place. Party security guards forcibly expelled them and tore down the posters they were holding in support of Mondlane’s candidacy.

Mozambique will hold general elections on October 9, including for the presidency. The current president, Filipe Nyusi, cannot stand, having reached the constitutional limit of two terms.

Source: Lusa