RENAMO leadership attracts 5 candidates

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RENAMO leadership attracts 5 candidates

7:29 CAT | 16 Jan 2019

in file CoM

Mozambique’s main opposition party, RENAMO, will today elect Afonso Dhlakama’s successor, a contest that has seen five candidates vying for the position.

RENAMO has been meeting since Tuesday for a three-day congress at one of the military bases in the Gorongosa mountain range.

The meeting will culminate into the election of Dhlakama’s successor, who will be RENAMO’s candidate in the October 15 presidential elections.

According to the DW Africa correspondent covering the congress, the five candidates for leadership of Mozambique’s main opposition party are Ossufo Momade, general in reserve and currently interim coordinator of RENAMO; Hermínio de Morais, general in reserve, Elias Dhlakama, brother of former party leader and general in the reserve of the Defense Forces of Mozambique, Juliano Picardo, deputy of the Assembly of the Republic by the RENAMO bench in Tete constituency and Manuel Bissopo, RENAMO’s current secretary-general.

The congress brings together 700 delegates and 300 guests and is discussing, in addition to Dhlakama’s succession, the country’s peace negotiations, the revision of the Constitution and the election of a new secretary-general.

Raúl Domingos’ Party for Peace, Democracy and Development (PDD) and the Democratic Renewal Party (PRD) are attending the congress.

“Alternative” to governance in Mozambique

On Tuesday, at the opening of this 6th Congress, Ossufo Momade, interim coordinator of the Mozambican National Resistance, said the party would continue to be a governance alternative in Mozambique.

“Our mission and our challenge is to continue to be a governance alternative,” said Momade, who has been running the party since May 2018 after Afonso Dhlakama’s death.

Momade stressed the need to strengthen internal cohesion for Renamo to be “strong” in its inclusive governance project.

He also defended the ideals of Afonso Dhlakama as a way of consolidating democracy in Mozambique, saying “our late president taught us how to transform difficulties into a source of inspiration and growth”, in reference to RENAMO’s complaints of fraud in the local elections of October 2018.

Momade said the decentralization package, as a result of the military truce between government forces and the armed wing of RENAMO, enforced in December 2016, should serve to strengthen democracy.

Source: DW