Speaking at a rally on Saturday in the northern city of Nampula, Dhlakama promised “I will no longer talk about a caretaker government”.
Apparently he had not informed members of his own office of this change of line. For just 24 hours earlier Dhlakama’s spokesperson, Antonio Muchanga, told a Maputo press conference that the formation of a caretaker government was the way forward. He said that such a government would thoroughly reform the police and the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service – even though STAE was completely reshaped earlier this year with, at Renamo’s insistence, political party appointees inserted at all levels.
Cited by the independent television station STV, Dhlakama told the Nampula rally the Renamo “will try to govern all of Mozambique. If Frelimo plays around, we shall certainly govern the provinces where we won”.
In those provinces, he said, Renamo will appoint provincial governors and district administrators. He did not say how governors and administrators would operate without money, without offices and without staff.
This is reminiscent of Dhlakama’s threat, immediately after the 2008 municipal elections, in which Renamo lost all five municipalities it had won five years earlier. Dhlakama called those elections fraudulent, and threatened to set up parallel municipal administrations. Not a single one of these Renamo parallel administrations came into being.
Dhlakama claimed that the riot police (FIR) and the armed forces (FADM) had “learnt a lesson in Satunjira”. He was referring to the Renamo military headquarters in the central district of Gorongosa overrun by the army in October 2013. He did not specify what lesson had been learnt – what is certain is that the army and police are still in Satunjira, and Renamo is not.
“Nobody can provoke Renamo! Nobody! Nobody!”, he declared. “I don’t want to speak of war, but Frelimo plays around a lot”.
Post published in: Africa News