Renamo’s Matola head of list accuses police of intimidation – Watch

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Renamo’s Matola head of list accuses police of intimidation – Watch

10:24 CAT | 19 Oct 2018

Photos: Magazine Independente

.Renamo’s Matola head of list in the October 10 municipal elections has accused the police of keeping his home under surveillance, which he says is an act of intimidation, Lusa reports.

“My family and I will be sleeping here in the Assembly of the Republic as long as police and armoured personnel carriers remain outside my house,” Antonio Muchanga said at the first plenary session of the Assembly of the Republic today in Maputo.

Muchanga also said that the police in the immediate vicinity of his residence were in plain clothes and provoking a climate of fear in his family and the neighbourhood.

Assembly of the Republic Speaker Verónica Macamo promised to investigate the allegations and clarify the situation.

The complaint provoked a moment of tension between Muchanga, who is also a member of the National Resistance of Mozambique (Renamo), and Speaker Macamo.

Muchanga disregarded Macamo’s request not to take the floor, since yesterday’s session – the first plenary session after a two-month break – was supposed to be devoted to the speeches of the three parliamentary parties’ chief whips and the president of the body.

Meanwhile, Magazine Independente online reported Muchanga as saying yesterday morning that, from the afternoon of 12 October he had noticed the presence of an FDS armoured vehicle in the area of his house, as well as the presence of plain clothes police officers.

Muchangabags1-1

According to the same source, Muchanga said that the armoured vehicles would make a turn at about 250 metres from his house, which he said he found normal.

But on the 15th of this month, when he was on a mission in Nairobi, Muchanga reportedly learned that armoured vehicles were surrounding his residence. A Rapid Intervention Unit armoured personnel carrier had been at the gate six times and a military vehicle five times, prompting his neighbours to ask him not to return home because they feared for his safety.

“I have just returned from Nairobi. I did not sleep at home. I slept on the street, to ensure my safety and ability to resume my noble mission as deputy of the Assembly of the Republic today. That is why I am calling for the attention of the President of the Assembly of the Republic and she is ignoring me,” Muchanga complained. “I will from this instant be living here until the head of government, who is the commander of the defence and security forces, removes the armoured vehicles and holds the person who sent them there accountable.”

Magazine Independente also reports that Muchanga was too afraid to return home and had taken his suitcases to the Assembly of the Republic.

Asked whether or not the armoured personnel could be there for his security, Muchanga said: “As a deputy, if someone intends to provide for my security, first they have to talk to me. Even the president’s own residence has no armoured vehicles patrolling. Is that the importance I have achieved after winning the election in Matola?”

A former Renamo spokesman, Muchanga was his party’s head of list for Matola in the October 10 municipal elections, but lost by a narrow margin to the ruling Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo).

Renamo refuses to accept defeat, and has lodged an appeal against the results claiming fraud.

Source: Lusa / Magazine CRV (TVM) / Magazine Independente