RENAMO REFUSES TO DISCUSS CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, is boycotting the parliamentary ad-hoc commission that was set up in December to draft amendments to the constitution.There should be 21 members of this ad-hoc commission, appointed by the political parties in proportion to the number of seats they hold in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. The ruling Frelimo Party has already appointed its 16 members of the Commission, and the Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM), has appointed one member. Renamo has the right to appoint four commission members – but the rapporteur of the Renamo parliamentary group, Saimone Macuiana, cited in Wednesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, said the party will simply take no part in the Commission’s work.“This amendment of the Constitution is to distract people”, Macuiana claimed, alleging that “many points in the defence of democracy are not being respected”.Asked whether Renamo might reconsider its position, Macuiana declared bluntly “Renamo won’t reconsider anything. We don’t agree”.Renamo is furious that Frelimo has not yet indicated which parts of the Constitution it wants to change. Frelimo is, however, on record as saying that it has no wish to change the constitutional limits on presidential terms of office. The Constitution states that nobody may occupy the Presidency for more than two consecutive terms. President Armando Guebuza is now in his second term, and has repeatedly declared that he has no wish for a third term. Frelimo has also said that it merely wishes to “consolidate” the existing constitution, and not completely rewrite it.The Renamo boycott will not prevent the ad-hoc commission from meeting and drawing up draft amendments. The sole result of the boycott is that the Commission will be somewhat cheaper, since there will be four fewer deputies drawing remuneration for their work on the Commission.The position taken by the Renamo parliamentary group appears to contradict that of the party’s leader, Afonso Dhlakama, currently living in self-imposed exile in the northern city of Nampula. In an interview published by the newsheet “CanalMoz” on Wednesday, Dhlakama said he would not allow “unilateral” changes to the constitution.But if Renamo refuses to take part in the Commission, then the only opposition to any proposal made by Frelimo will come from a solitary deputy of the MDM.Dhlakama claimed that “Frelimo wants to change the Constitution in order to copy Angola, so that the President of the Republic is elected by parliament. It doesn’t want the President to be elected by the population any more”.“That makes no sense”, he added. “The President is the symbol of the country and so the election should be direct and universal. Does Frelimo want to stuff ballot boxes so that it will later elect a drug trafficker in the Assembly and say he is President of the Republic. I will not allow it”.In fact, Frelimo has not so far suggested any change to the way in which the President is elected. And hidden from public view in his house in Nampula, emerging to give interviews every now and then, Dhlakama is certainly in no position to allow or disallow anything. “I promise to undertake work outside the Assembly to make Frelimo retreat”, said Dhlakama. “If they want to revise the constitution to show that they are democrats, then let’s hold a referendum. I shall defend my point of view, which is that the President should emerge from the will of the people”.The Constitution does list a number of fundamental principles that can only be changed by referendum. One of them is “the separation and interdependence of the sovereign bodies”. Clearly, election of the President by parliament would violate the separation between the executive and the legislature, and would indeed, whatever its merits or demerits, require a referendum.