Africa-Press – Mozambique. A senior member of Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo, Alfredo Magumisse, has declared that, although the party’s current President, Ossufo Momade, must not continue to lead Renamo, he could be allowed to stay on as an adviser.
Magumisse was speaking to reporters on Saturday, shortly before the start of a national conference of Renamo demobilised guerrillas. According to the independent daily “O Pais”, the conference is also attended by “influential members” of the Renamo management commission.
This conference is the latest stage in a bitter struggle for the future of Renamo. For many months Momade’s opponents have been occupying Renamo offices across the country, demanding the resignation of Momade, widely blamed for Renamo’s poor showing in the October 2024 general elections.
“There are no conditions for Ossufo Momade to lead the party effectively”, declared Magumisse. Instead, Magumisse should influence the party “as our adviser”.
He said Renamo should prepare to reorganise and restructure the party, while all of Momade’s supporters should be persuaded that he ought to advise Renamo, rather than lead it.
Magumisse claimed he had no leadership ambitions himself. “I don’t have any problem with being an ally of this person or that person”, he said. His main goal was to see a Renamo “capable of exercising political pressure for the reconstruction of society”.
He claimed that Mozambicans “want to know what are Renamo’s projects for how the country can emerge from the current crisis, particularly as regards the public finances”.
“Renamo has to say what is the most correct way for the country to develop an economy capable of generating income for the State. That is what we have to do”, he declared.
The current meeting of demobilised former guerrillas is supposed to precede the holding of an extraordinary Renamo Congress. Momade was elected President of Renamo at a Congress in 2019, and re-elected in 2024.
He can thus claim democratic legitimacy, while it is far from clear who his opponents represent. There has so far been no reaction to Magumisse’s suggestion that Momade should be relegated to the role of an adviser.
Renamo was once the main opposition party, but since its poor showing in 2024, it has clearly been overtaken by the National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (Anamola), led by former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane.
Mondlane attracts crowds of many thousands wherever he goes, vastly overshadowing the performance of all Renamo leaders.
