HARARE - Mozambique's ruling Frelimo kicked off election campaigns in Zimbabwe today, with a clarion call on its citizens living in Zimbabwe to cast their vote in the forthcoming national and presidential elections in October, the fourth since the southern African country became a multi-party democracy 15 years ago.Mozambiques ruling party, Frelimo launched its campaign in Epworth, a dirt-poor slum on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
The rally, addressed by top Frelimo officials, was attended by hundreds of Mozambican citizens resident in Zimbabwe.
Mozambican ambassador to Zimbabwe, Vinicente Veleso, said the date for the elections had been set for October 28 this year.
“It has been decided that Mozambican citizens living in Zimbabwe and abroad will be able to cast their votes,” said Veleso on the sidelines of the rally. This is in sharp contrast to Zimbabwe, where 3 million exiles have been disenfranchised from voting in elections back home.
Mozambique will use postal ballot for its citizens resident in Zimbabwe in the forthcoming polls.
Mozambiques ambassador encouraged Mozambican citizens resident in Zimbabwe to fully exercise their right during the elections.
President Armando Guebuza of the governing Frelimo party is being challenged by Afonso Dhlakama, long-time leader of the opposition Renamo, and Daviz Simango, mayor of Beira city
and founder of a breakaway opposition group.
Seventeen parties and two coalitions are meanwhile in the running for seats in the Mozambican Parliament, known as the Assembly of the Republic, and, for the first time,
provincial assemblies.
According to the Frelimo electoral manifesto distributed at the rally in Epworth, the party is campaigning around the “consolidation of national unity, peace, democracy, the fight against poverty and the strengthening of national sovereignty and international cooperation.”
Head of the Frelimo delegation Celeste Machute expressed optimism in her partys “ability to retain power” and appealed to the supporters to consider the partys “previous and current
empowerment programmes.”
Guebuza’s re-election is virtually guaranteed, political analysts say. He won the 2004 election with 64 percent of the vote, while Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since independence from Portugal in 1975.
Former rebel movement Renamo has meanwhile suffered a series of setbacks since 2004, when Dhlakama last ran against Guebuza and lost by more than a two-to-one margin.
In local elections in November, Renamo failed to win a single mayoral seat.
Then in March, Simango – a rising star in Renamo before falling out with its leaders – formed a rival> opposition party, the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM),
taking some of Renamo’s top political talent with him.
Tension between Renamo and the MDM has run high in the months leading up to the campaign.
In June, Simango was the victim of an apparent assassination attempt that police blamed on Dhlakama’s bodyguards.
Renamo denied any involvement on the part of its leaders.
Multi-party democracy was established in Mozambique as part of a peace deal that ended a 16-year civil war.
Veleso said elections would be free and fair and said voter registration for Mozambican citizens closed on July 29 and that the Mozambican National Electoral Commission had drawn up a civil education programme for Mozambican citizens living in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe and Mozambique share cordial relations that date back to the days of the liberation struggle but occasionally relations have been strained over misrule and rights violations by President Mugabe’s previous exclusive adminstration.
Post published in: Zimbabwe News