This was the third day of debate on the government’s five year programme for the 2015-2019 period, but many of the Renamo speeches centred on what they called “electoral fraud” and “theft of votes”. The Renamo benches even claimed that “80 per cent” of the electorate had voted for Renamo and its leader and presidential candidate Afonso Dhlakama.
Praises were showered on Dhlakama as “the genuine winner”, “the uncontested leader of the people”, and “the finest son of today’s Mozambique”. Francisco Campira even claimed that Dhlakama “is blessed by God with the wisdom of King Solomon”.
For Fernando Lavieque, the government programme could not be passed because it was “a Frelimo manifesto and the people have already rejected it”, while Antonio Muchanga categorically declared “the Mozambican people didn’t vote for Frelimo or for (President Filipe) Nyusi”
The head of the Renamo parliamentary group, Ivone Soares, asked “will this programme solve the problem of theft of votes? The answer is no! All Mozambicans know that Frelimo didn’t win the election”.
The five year programme, she added, had been written by “specialists in fraud. They’ve been making false promises since 1975 (the year of Mozambican independence)”. Dhlakama, she declared was, “highly intelligent” – and at this the Frelimo benches, knowing full well that Soares is Dhlakama’s niece, burst into open laughter.
The spokesperson for the Frelimo parliamentary group, Edmundo Galiza-Matos Junior, said that Renamo’s “song about fraud is a very scratched disc. How can fraud account for an extra million votes?” (the gap between Nyusi and Dhlakama).
Galiza-Matos pointed out that the electoral legislation was changed in February 2014 to give Renamo everything it wanted. The entire electoral apparatus was politicized putting political party appointees from Renamo, Frelimo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) at every level, costing the state budget an extra 50 million dollars.
Renamo could appoint staff members at every one of the over 17,000 polling stations. “You have to learn to lose with dignity”, Galiza-Matos urged.
The head of the Frelimo group, Margarida Talapa, declared “I am proud to belong to Frelimo, this party of winners, which wins election after election, and whose candidates become President of the Republic”. And no matter how intelligent Renamo might claim its candidate is, “from election to election, he remains just a candidate”.
Talapa lamented that “just as we can’t choose our neighbours, so we can’t choose the opposition”.
Frelimo deputies insisted that the real problem facing Mozambique is that Renamo remains in possession of an illegal militia, which terrorizes citizens. Agostinho Vuma claimed that the Renamo gunmen who had crossed into Gaza province were not only spreading fear, but were stealing cattle from local farmers.
“The farmers are obliged to slaughter their cattle, rather than let them fall into Renamo hands”, Vuma alleged.
Muchanga retorted that the clashes in Gaza were the fault of the government’s armed forces. But he admitted that the Renamo gunmen have only been in Gaza’s Guija district for the past month – this troop movement is a clear violation of the 5 September agreement on cessation of hostilities signed by Dhlakama and the then President, Armando Guebuza.
Galiza-Matos stressed that the law on political parties bans any political party from keeping its own militia, and suggested this was something the government should deal with urgently. Damiao Jose accused Renamo of “pretending to be a political party when you have armed men terrifying the people”.
Renamo had also complained against the image of an AK-47 rifle figures on the Mozambican flag. Frelimo deputy Caifurdine Manasse asked “is the gun on the flag more dangerous than the guns that were in Satunjira (a major Renamo military base overrun by the army in October 2013), or more dangerous than guns in the hands of armed men in the bush?”
Manasse found Renamo’s complaints that the government is not creating enough jobs hypocritical given Renamo’s record of destroying factories during the war of destabilization. He cited in particular the attempt to build what would have been southern Africa’s largest textile factory, at Mocuba in the central province of Zambezia. Renamo sabotage, he said, ensured that it could never be completed.
Renamo deputy Jeronimo Malagueta, once a senior figure in the Renamo army, protested that the factory, being built with aid from the then German Democratic Republic (GDR), was halted by the unification of the two Germanies.
AIM can testify that this was a shameless attempt to rewrite history. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. The construction of the Mocuba factory had been paralysed more than six years before that. When an AIM reporter visited Zambezia in 1983, he found the East German equipment for the factory piled up on the docks at the port of the provincial capital, Quelimane, rusting in the tropical sun and rain.
It was on the docks because overland transport between Quelimane and Mocuba was impossible. Renamo had sabotaged the railway between the two towns, and attacked anything that moved on the road. The only safe way of reaching Mocuba was by helicopter.
Post published in: Africa News