Watch: Venancio Mondlane to stand as Renamo candidate in Maputo

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Watch: Venancio Mondlane to stand as Renamo candidate in Maputo

12:36 CAT | 22 Jul 2018

Photo: TVM

Mozambique’s main opposition party Renamo on Saturday selected Venancio Mondlane as its candidate for mayor in the capital city of Maputo in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October.

According to Renamo, Mondlane beat three other candidates for the position, namely Aristidea Chuquela, Gilberto Chirindza, and Jaime Jingador.

Addressing members of the party in Maputo shortly after his election, Mondlane said: “Renamo is my cause, Renamo is my family, and Renamo is my political destiny”.

Mondlane added that he would work to register five thousand Renamo members to serve as observers at a thousand voting stations across the city during the municipal elections. He appealed to party members to work together “with all our heart and soul”.

He revealed that during meetings with the leader of Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama (who died on 3 May), he had received a vision on how he should nurture politics in the country.

Venancio Mondlane is the former rapporteur of the parliamentary group of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). He defected from the MDM at the beginning of July and resigned his parliamentary seat.

Mondlane, who owes his entire political career to the MDM, shot to prominence in the 2013 municipal elections when he was MDM candidate for mayor of Maputo and took 40 per cent of the vote. This came as a shock to the ruling Frelimo Party, which had regarded Maputo as a stronghold. The Frelimo candidate, current mayor David Simango, won, but his vote was slashed from 85 to 58 per cent.

It had seemed that Mondlane would stand for the MDM again: MDM members in Maputo twice elected him as their candidate for mayor in the municipal elections – once at a meeting in October 2017, and again last month. However, he rejected the candidature and switched sides to Renamo.

On Thursday another senior member of the MDM quit the party. According to local papers, the mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo, has announced that he is leaving the party and it is widely expected that he will stand as the mayoral candidate for the city on the Renamo slate.

There are rumours that other senior MDM figures are considering leaving the party and the municipal elections will be a good guide to whether the country is returning to a two-party political system.