OJM boasts it will put Frelimo into power in Quelimane – Mozambique Elections, AIM report

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OJM boasts it will put Frelimo into power in Quelimane – Mozambique Elections, AIM report

7:02 CAT | 03 Oct 2018

Photo: Celso Ejai / Facebook

The General Secretary of the Mozambique Youth Organisation (OJM), which is affiliated to the ruling Frelimo Party, Mety Gondola, claimed on Tuesday that young voters in the central city of Quelimane will put Frelimo back into power in that municipality in the local elections scheduled for 10 October.

Speaking at a Frelimo motorcade, Gondola praised what he called “the mass presence” of young people in the campaign, and claimed nothing remained but to believe in victory.

“This is a triumphal march which shows the youth support for Frelimo”, he claimed. “The youth will put Frelimo into power in Quelimane, and ensure that the party’s victory is a celebration for Carlos Carneiro (the Frelimo mayoral candidate) to govern us in this city”.

Carneiro also thought the march “clearly illustrates the victory of Frelimo in Quelimane. We have always been faced with complaints theta Frelimo should rescue Quelimane, that Frelimo should govern Quelimane”.

He added that “Frelimo will bring beauty, radiance, water, schools, health centres, roads, drainage, sanitation…. All this can only happen with Frelimo in power”.

Frelimo displayed similar complacency during the mayoral by-election in Quelimane in 2011, when it appeared to believe that it could not possibly lose. But it lost that election to Manuel de Araujo, then the candidate of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). The MDM repeated its Quelimane victory, in the nationwide municipal elections of 2013.

Araujo has now defected from the MDM to the main opposition, the former rebel movement Renamo. He clearly retains a substantial personal following in the city, as shown by the large crowds that have followed him throughout the campaign.

On Tuesday, Araujo promised that, if Renamo wins the election he will continue sanitation projects that he began when he was in the MDM. “We have two projects, namely Quelimane Limpa (Clean Quelimane) and Quelimane Agricola (Agricultural Quelimane), resulting from a partnership with the municipality of Milan in Italy”, he said.

Araujo has referred repeatedly in his campaign to the contacts he has made with potential foreign partners to solve some of the problems faced by Quelimane. When asked about the city’s water supply problems, Araujo replied “last year I went to Israel where I began negotiations with technicians of that country to solve the Quelimane water problem once and for all”.

Araujo is behaving as if there is no doubt that he is still mayor of the city, with the right to stand for a further term of office. But in late August, he government sacked him as mayor, because the 1997 law on the administrative supervision of municipalities states that any elected municipal official who joins a party different from the one on whose ticket he was elected, automatically loses his position, and is disqualified from standing in the next round of municipal elections.

Araujo appealed against the government decision to the Administrative Tribunal which has not yet ruled on the matter. If the Tribunal finds against him, he will not be able to hold municipal office for the next five years.