Renamo to postpone congress once again

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Renamo to postpone congress once again

11:19 CAT | 21 Sep 2017

DW / Renamo members at a meeting in Nampula

The remoteness of its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, from active politics is the main reason for the further postponement of the next Renamo congress, but Dhlakama is however expected to stand as Renamo candidate in the next presidential elections.

Unlike other political parties with a parliamentary seat in Mozambique, namely Frelimo (the Liberation Front of Mozambique) and the MDM (Democratic Movement of Mozambique), Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance) may again not hold its congress, an event considered fundamental for any political party, especially before elections.

The last congress, the fifth since the creation of the party, was held in 2009 in Nampula. According to its party statutes, Renamo should have organised its sixth congress five years later, in 2014.

The main reason for the new postponement is the leader’s absence from conventional politics. As a result of the conflict following the 2014 elections, Dhakama has taken refuge in the Gorongosa mountain range in the centre of the country.

But some party members are asking for a congress to be held anyway. “It is important that there is a congress, because it is a moment of reflection on the life of the party,” Braimo Ossufo, provincial president of the Renamo Youth League in Nampula, argues.

But, at least officially, Renamo young people do not know whether the sixth congress will happen before the next electoral cycle in 2018 or not. “It would be premature for us to comment in detail, because there is a competent body to comment on that event,” Ossufo added.

Dhlakama’s authority has held for more than 20 years

The National Political Council can nominate a presidential candidate without holding a congress, and Renamo is set to re-appoint Afonso Dhlakama to run for president, former head of the Renamo bench in parliament Maria Angelina Inoque told DW Africa in Nampula.

Mosambik, Maria Angelina Inoque — Maria Angelina Inoque, former head of the Renamo parliamentary group in the Assembly of the Republic

“We want to win, we want to govern Mozambique, we want to put President Afonso Dhlakama in power and prove that it is possible to govern a country,” she said.

Inoque said Renamo was working on preparations and strategies to win the next municipal and presidential elections in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

“We are not going to these polls already defeated, we are going in winning,” she said optimistically.

Afonso Dhlakama, who traditionally calls himself the “father of democracy” in Mozambique, has been Renamo’s only presidential candidate since the first multiparty elections in 1994.

Source: Deutsche Welle