Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Political Commission of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, opposition) on Monday scheduled the party’s national assembly for 14 April, ahead of the elective congress, which will be held a month later, to prepare for the general elections in October.
Speaking to journalists after the meeting of the Political Commission of Mozambique’s largest opposition party, the spokesman for this body, Alfredo Magumisse, said that, following the internal calendar and that of the National Electoral Commission, “Renamo will hold its national council meeting, the most important meeting between two consecutive congresses”.
“The Political Commission, as is statutory, decided to schedule the national council session to be held in the capital city of Maputo for 14 April,” said Alfredo Magumisse, adding that the meeting, which precedes the congress, will have the motto “Renamo forte, refletindo sobre a democracia e a reconciliação nacional” (Renamo strong, reflecting on democracy and national reconciliation).
On March 22, Renamo announced that a congress to elect the organisation’s next leader would be held on May 15 and 16.
Saimone Macuiane, Renamo’s lawyer, made the announcement in Maputo City’s Judicial Court, as part of an agreement with the party’s deputy Venâncio Mondlane, who filed an injunction demanding that the leadership of that political force set the dates for the elective congress.
“We reached an agreement on the scheduling of the congress. The Renamo Congress will take place between the 15th and 16th of May,” Saimone Macuiane told the judge in the case of the injunction brought by Venâncio Mondlane on the 23rd of February.
In his speech during the hearing, Venâncio Mondlane, who once again expressed his intention to run for the party presidency, asked for a declaration to be included in the minutes of the court settlement that all party members should exercise their activities freely, pointing out that there is evidence of a limitation on the “political freedom” of militants who intend to run for the party presidency.
“We didn’t want there to be any impediment to political freedom,” he emphasised, also defending the “equal treatment” of candidates for the leadership of Renamo.
A Renamo source said that it would be up to the party’s national council to confirm the dates of the next general meeting and announce the venue.
Renamo has been led by Ossufo Momade since the death of Afonso Dhlakama in May 2018, but the mandate of the party’s governing bodies expired on 17 January. Even so, at the time, 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 convened, 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.
Mozambique is holding general elections on 9 October, including presidential elections, in which the current country’s president and leader of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), Filipe Nyusi, is no longer running, as he has reached the two-term limit laid down in the constitution.
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