DHLAKAMA THREATENS TO SEIZE POWER

Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, has threatened to remove the ruling Frelimo Party from power “within 24 hours”, if what he called “negotiations” between Frelimo and Renamo have no effect.According to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, Dhlakama was speaking on Saturday in the northern city of Nampula, where he was chairing a Renamo cadre training session.Dhlakama said it was “a victory” for Renamo that Frelimo had agreed to “negotiate” and had set up a commission for this purpose. He claimed that the course of these negotiations so far was positive, but warned that if they do not bear any fruit, and are just “a cosmetic game of Frelimo”, then he will order his team out of the talks, and “I will expel Frelimo from power in 24 hours”.However, Frelimo has repeatedly said that there are no negotiations under way at all, merely a dialogue between the two parties. The Frelimo and Renamo delegations met in early February, without any publicity, and will meet again on 24 March. According to Antonio Nihiroe, the Renamo head of mobilization and propaganda in Nampula, the demands raised by Renamo in the talks include the abolition of the riot police. It has also tabled such questions as illicit enrichment, the alleged partisan nature of the police and the state, and the fight against electoral fraud.Frelimo has declined to comment on the matters under discussion, on the grounds that it is unethical to make public claims about talks that are still under way.Dhlakama declined to reveal how he planned to remove Frelimo from power in just one day, but claimed he had a strategy that “will not fail”.Dhlakama has made a string of empty threats over the years. Thus after the 2008 municipal elections, in which Renamo did not win control of a single municipality, Dhlakama boasted that he would swear the defeated Renamo candidates into office to run parallel municipal administrations. To date, well over two years later, no parallel administrations exist.After Renamo’s crushing defeat in the 2009 presidential and parliamentary elections, Dhlakama threatened to hold nationwide demonstrations against what he claimed were fraudulent election results. To date, not a single Renamo demonstration has been held.Dhlakama announced that the Renamo deputies elected in 2009 would boycott the new parliament. But all the Renamo deputies defied him and took up their seats.