Nampula mayor promises to stay in politics “for 50 years” – Mozambique

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Nampula mayor promises to stay in politics “for 50 years” – Mozambique

7:28 CAT | 17 Apr 2017

Voa (File photo) / Nampula mayor Mahamudo Amurane

The Mayor of the northern Mozambican city of Nampula, Mahamudo Amurane, has made the startling boast that he will be active in politics “for the next 50 years”.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, after swearing two new city councilors into office, Amurane made it clear that he intends to run for a second term of office in the 2018 municipal elections.

Amurane’s main problem is that apparently he no longer has the backing of any political party. He won the 2013 mayoral election as the candidate of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), but this year his relations with his own party seem to have broken down completely.

He has accused the MDM of campaigning against him on issues of corruption and, although he is a member of the MDM Political Commission, he did not attend a meeting of this body held in Nampula in February.

Amurane has not resigned from the MDM, and the party’s leader, Daviz Simango, made it clear that the MDM has no intention of expelling Amurane. Nonetheless, the gulf between them looks very wide.

Questioned by reporters about his political future, Amurane said “Mozambique is not a hostage of any group. Particularly when this group undermined a historical process, which is the municipal library”. He was clearly referring to the MDM, since the MDM group in the Nampula municipal assembly did not support a proposal from Amurane that the library should be named after the first catholic archbishop of Nampula, Manuel Vieira Pinto, who was one of the few anti-fascist figures in the catholic hierarchy in the closing years of colonial rule.

He then declared that he would continue a political career, regardless of whether the MDM supported him. Cited by the independent television station STV, Amurane declared “Even if I become paralysed, but am still breathing and in my right mind, you can count on me in politics, even without the MDM, for the next 50 years”.

“I am saying that, regardless of the MDM, you can count on me in the next municipal elections”, he promised.

Unless the breach between Amurane and the MDM is somehow healed in the next few months, this promise implies that he will seek to run as an independent, or will try to strike a deal with one of the two major political parties, either the ruling Frelimo Party or the former rebel movement Renamo.

Source: AIM