Nhamayabue, one of ten towns upgraded to municipal status this year, was the only one of the 53 municipalities where Frelimo was unable to announce last week its “pre-candidates” for the municipal elections to be held on 20 November.
According to the Frelimo Central Committee Secretary for Mobilisation and Propaganda, Damiao Jose, this was because there were irregularities in the paperwork of those proposed as candidates. These problems were supposed to be sorted out over the weekend.
But the inner-party election was postponed until Wednesday, and by then there was still no consensus in the Frelimo zone committee over who should be candidate.
At this point, individuals who have not yet been identified tried to make it impossible to hold the election meeting, using as their excuse the “irregularities” in the list of pre-candidates.
Damiao Jose told AIM on Friday that barricades made of tree trunks were placed on the main street of Nhamayabue. It became impossible for the Frelimo delegates to enter the room where the election was to be held.
Jose said that those causing the disturbances were not members of Frelimo. But he did not know who they were. In his phone contact with AIM, he did not blame either of the two main opposition parties, the former rebel movement Renamo, or the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
Renamo is boycotting the municipal elections and has threatened to make it impossible for them to be held. But there are no reports of Renamo attempting to disrupt the Frelimo election meetings anywhere else in the country.
The police restored order to the town, and the meeting was finally able to begin on Thursday.
Voting concluded in the small hours of Friday morning, Jose told AIM, and the man chosen as the Frelimo candidate is Alberto Salifo Amade.
Post published in: Africa News