Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Maputo City Judicial Court accepted the injunction issued by Renamo MP Venâncio Mondlane and banned the leader of Mozambique’s largest opposition party, Ossufo Momade, from carrying out “structuring acts”.
The Maputo City Judicial Court accepted the injunction issued by Renamo MP Venâncio Mondlane and banned the leader of Mozambique’s largest opposition party, Ossufo Momade, from carrying out “structuring acts”.
The court’s decision, at a time of internal turmoil in the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) over the process of choosing a new leadership, whose mandate ended last January, was announced on Friday by the author of the injunction, Venâncio Mondlane.
“It is stipulated that the defendant be ordered to suspend all structuring acts carried out by him, on the one hand, and to refrain from dismissing delegates and other members in office and from appointing replacements for those dismissed, outside the period of the party bodies’ mandate,” reads the court decision, dated 5 March.
On 23 February, Venâncio Mondlane filed two injunctions against Renamo’s leader, Ossufo Momade, demanding the scheduling of the congress and the annulment of dismissals allegedly made outside his mandate.
“I have submitted an injunction here so that the organs of justice notify the leader of Renamo to comply with the party’s statutes in full, that is, to be obliged to set the date for the congress, especially since up until now the objective reasons for not complying with an imperative statutory rule, which is non-negotiable, are not known,” Venâncio Mondlane told journalists outside the court at the time.
The politician, who has already announced his intention to run for the party’s leadership, considers it a “serious statutory irregularity” that Ossufo Momade, who is responsible for the decision, has not set the date for the congress to choose Renamo’s new leader.
In addition to the date of the congress, Venâncio Mondlane also complained to the court about being prevented from doing political work in Renamo delegations, considering the attitude undemocratic and unconstitutional.
The MP also accused the current Renamo leader of exonerating provincial and district political delegates and other members en masse after his mandate expired on 17 January, on the grounds that they were not aligned with the party’s interests and had “some sympathy or inclination towards Venâncio Mondlane”.
Venâncio Mondlane ran last October in the local elections in Maputo, for Renamo, having led around 50 demonstrations with thousands of people in the capital against the official election results, which gave victory to the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party), rejected by the opposition and the candidate.
Renamo has been led by Ossufo Momade since the death of Afonso Dhlakama in May 2018, but the mandate of the party’s organs expired on 17 January. Even so, in January, the party’s spokesman, José Manteigas, named Ossufo Momade as a candidate in the October general elections for the post of country’s president.
Even though no elective congress or national commission meeting has been called, three activists have already announced that they intend to run for the leadership of Renamo, in a year when Mozambique is holding general elections, including presidential elections: MP and former Maputo mayoral candidate Venâncio Mondlane, the son of the party’s historic leader, Elias Dhlakama, and former MP Juliano Picardo.
The mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araújo, said he was studying the possibility.
Renamo’s leadership has been criticised both externally and internally, with former leader of the party’s armed wing Timosse Maquinze accusing Ossufo Momade of inertia in the face of alleged irregularities in the Mozambican local elections in October, allegedly in favour of the ruling party, and of negligence in the face of the situation of the party’s recently demobilised guerrillas.
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