Renamo elects its candidates – AIM report

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Renamo elects its candidates – AIM report

5:37 CAT | 28 Jun 2019

in file CoM

Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, declared on Friday that it is handling democratically the inner-party elections that will choose candidates for the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and for the ten provincial assemblies.

Mustagibo Bachir, a member of the Renamo National Political Commission, promised respect for democratic procedures, at the opening of the conference in the capital to choose the parliamentary candidates for the Maputo constituency.

Delegates to this conference will elect candidates to fill all 13 seats allocated to the city, plus a further 13 supplementary candidates.

“This conference is the culmination of a democratic process held in all the Maputo City urban districts, in order to live up to our reality as democrats”, said Bachir. “The ultimate moment has come for us to refine the party machinery, so that we can enjoy success in the coming elections, because Renamo and its presidential candidate Ossufo Momade, are the only hope of the Mozambican people”.

The delegates here have an easier task than those in other provinces, since there is no provincial assembly in the capital. It was deemed unnecessary to create such a body, since it would duplicate the role of the Maputo Municipal Assembly.

There are 250 seats in the Assembly of the Republic, 248 of them elected from the 11 provincial constituencies, and two by Mozambicans living abroad. There are 794 seats in the ten provincial assemblies.

The head of the list of whichever party wins the largest number of seats in a provincial assembly will become the new provincial governor.

According to “Radio Paz”, a catholic station that broadcasts from Quelimane, capital of the central province of Zambezia, four people are competing to be head of the Renamo list and hence the next Zambezia governor.

One of them is the mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo. He is a politician who was elected to parliament on the Renamo ticket in 2004, and then defected to the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), which started life as a breakaway from Renamo. He became mayor of Quelimane, as the MDM candidate, in a by-election in 2011, and was re-elected, again for the MDM, in the nationwide municipal elections in 2013.

But last year Araujo returned to Renamo, and won his third victory in Quelimane, but this time under the Renamo flag, despite angry protests from the MDM and from the central government who believed he should have been disqualified.

The other people hoping to head the Renamo list are the Renamo national spokesperson, Jose Manteigas, a former general secretary of the party, Viana Magalhaes, and prominent parliamentarian, Maria Ines.

The Frelimo Central Committee Secretary for Mobilisation and Propaganda, Caifadine Manasse, told AIM on Friday that Frelimo will elect its candidates for parliament and for the provincial assemblies at conferences in all the provincial capitals in the week of 5-10 July.

Source: AIM