END OF RENAMO

Not only will Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, boycott the municipal elections scheduled for 20 November, it is also instructing its members not even to register as voters.According to a report in Monday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, Renamo held a meetings of members and supporters in Beira at the weekend at which they were instructed not to register,The Renamo Beira City head of mobilization, Horacio Calavete told reporters “we are not saying that we are not going to stand in the elections this year. We are saying that we will not allow the voter registration, much less the municipal elections, to take place”.Renamo is angered because its proposed amendments to the country’s electoral laws were not accepted. In the vote in December in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, the new electoral legislation was passed with the votes of the ruling Frelimo Party and the second opposition force, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).“Frelimo and the CNE (National Elections Commission) are playing with us”, exclaimed Calavete. “For us, the law passed by the Assembly of the Republic is no more than a document that seeks to make the theft of votes official”.He threatened that, if the police try to prevent any Renamo demonstration, the party would call on its former guerrillas to intervene. “If the police use force, we shall react in the same way”, Calavete said. “Our soldiers will not forgive”.The Renamo boycott clears the way for the MDM, dismissed by Renamo as “traitors”, to become the main opposition force in the country. The MDM is already preparing for the November elections, and it too held a meeting in Beira at the weekend. The purpose of the MDM was the opposite of that of the Renamo gathering – it was to urge MDM members and sympathizers to take a full part in the elections, starting with the voter registration.There will be a complete re-registration of the electorate in all 43 municipalities from 25 May to 23 July. Registration is a pre-requisite for voting in November.The MDM Beira delegate, Flora Impula, said “we are starting a series of contacts with our members and supporters and with the public at large, to convince them to participate in the elections”.She dismissed the Renamo boycott as “childish” and as evidence that Renamo never really wanted to govern Mozambique.“Clearly Renamo doesn’t want the democracy it claims to defend”, she said. “It doesn’t make sense for a party such as Renamo to boycott a political process and think only about demonstrations. What we want is to go forward”.The US embassy in Maputo is also unimpressed by Renamo’s promised boycott. Cited in Monday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, US ambassador Douglas Griffiths said that US diplomats have met with the Renamo parliamentary group, in an attempt to persuade Renamo to change its mind. “The people deserve transparent, free and inclusive elections and more alternatives”, said Griffiths. “The non-participation of Renamo limits the alternatives”.Griffiths did not reveal what response, if any, he received from the Renamo parliamentarians. 

POLICE HUNT SUPERMARKET RAIDERS

The Mozambican police are hunting for a gang of armed thieves who attacked a supermarket last week in the Maputo neighbourhood of Malhangalene.Maputo City police spokesperson Orlando Mudumane told reporters on Monday that the thieves stole 50,000 meticais (about 1,660 US dollars) in cash, ten cell phones and a computer. He declined to name the supermarket.“The individuals entered the shop, pulled out a pistol and threatened the customers”, he said. “They took what they wanted and made their escape. Investigations are continuing in order to arrest the criminals”. Mudumane also said the police detained five people accused of stealing cars by passing dud cheques to three separate car rental companies. The five were named as Salvador Mulid, Antonio Chalosse, Pedro Ernesto, Mussa Aly and Estevao Macuvele Junior.“They would go to the rent-a-car companies to hire the most expensive vehicles”, he said. “They used company cheques for payment and took the cars”.But when the car rental companies tried to cash the cheques, they found that they bounced, and so they promptly denounced the swindle to the police. But by that time the gang had managed to steal six cars. However the police have succeeded in recovering all of them in Maputo city and province. Mudumane did not give the names of the companies whose cheques were used in this fraud. Mudumane said that, over the previous week, the authorities had denied entry into the country to 66 foreigners, some because their entry visas were forged, and some because they could not explain what they were going to do in Mozambique and what they would live on. Those denied entry included 19 Pakistanis, 15 Egyptians, 11 Bangladeshis, four Nigerians, three Ethiopians, three Somalis, two Kenyans, two Cameroonians, two Senegalese and two Vietnamese. During the week, the Maputo traffic police inspected 4,569 vehicles, of which 11 were seized because of various irregularities. 1,608 motorists were fined, and 37 were found to be driving under the influence of alcohol. Six motorists were arrested for offering bribes to the traffic police.

GOVERNMENT CLOSES MINING PROMOTION FUND

The Mozambican government has decided to close the Mining Promotion Fund (FFM), an institution created in 1988 to provide technical and financial support to artisanal and small scale miners.The decision was taken during a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) held in Maputo on Tuesday.To replace the FFM the government has created the Geological and Mining Institute (IGM) to increase and strengthen the national capacity to utilise geological and mining data and to certify mineral production.According to the government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Alberto Nkutumula, “the main role of this institution is to conduct exploration, research and identification of mineral resources in our national territory”.He continued, “the secondary role is to develop and disseminate technologies that can add value to the mineral resources in a sustainable manner”.The IGM will be headed by three directors, one of whom will be nominated by the Prime Minister with the others being nominated by the Minister for Mineral Resources. The audit committee will be appointed by the Minister of Finance.The IGM will be based in Maputo and will take over the human, financial and material resources of the FFM.The Council of Ministers also ratified loan agreements with the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Italy.

The 84 million US dollar loan from JICA covers the first phase of the development of the northern Mozambican port of Nacala.The loan from Italy is for 60 million euros to finance the construction of a dam at Nhacangara in Manica province and the construction of infrastructure to improve drainage in Maputo.The dam at Nhacangara, budgeted at 39 million euros, will provide water for the central city of Beira and for irrigating Inhazonia in Manica province.

“WE DON’T WANT POLICE WHO ARE TRAINED TO KILL”

The spokesperson of the General Command of the Mozambican Police, Pedro Cossa, declared on Tuesday that the police force “doesn’t want agents who are trained to kill”.That, he told reporters, was why the police involved in two recent scandals will be expelled from the force. In the most serious case, police officers in the T3 neighbourhood of the southern city of Matola shot and killed a 31 year old minibus driver, Alfredo Tivane, on 19 March simply because he disobeyed an order to stop – a friend of Tivane said that he continued driving his vehicle because he did not hear the police command to stop.In a second case, a crew from the independent television station, STV, caught on camera scenes of police beating up a young man in the western city of Tete, who was unable to show his identity card – even though it is not a crime to walk the streets without an ID card, and large numbers of Mozambicans do not possess such a card. When the journalists approached the police, they too were threatened and manhandled. These scenes were broadcast to the nation on the STV evening news.Cossa said that the policemen involved in the T3 murder and the Tete beating have been detained, and will stay in jail until all the legal procedures have been complied with. “This type of attitude is repugnant both to the police force and to society”, he said.He said the policemen who committed these brutal acts were rookies, and the norm is that such trainee police should be accompanied by an experienced officer. “I don’t know what happened with these rookies. They acted without the consent of their superior”, Cossa added. He urged local communities to help in the recruitment of young people for the police, by revealing what they know of their real behaviour. “Often the communities don’t help”, he said. “They allow young people of doubtful conduct to enter the police. We frequently send our agents into the neighbourhoods, but when we ask about the conduct of youths who want to join the police, the communities don’t give us the true facts”. 

MILLION MOSQUITO NETS DISTRIBUTED BY USAID

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has, since 2007, distributed 20 million insecticide treated mosquito nets in collaboration with the Mozambican government, according to Polly Dunford, the interim USAID director in Mozambique.Speaking on Thursday, at a meeting reflecting on the cooperation between the US and Mozambique, she said that the mosquito nets, distributed under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), have reduced the impact of malaria which has been the main cause of mortality, particularly among Mozambican children, and at peak periods, the main cause of hospitalisation.Dunford said that, since the launch of PEPFAR in Mozambique in 2006, USAID has disbursed over 200 million dollars for the anti-malaria programme. This sum has covered no only the bed nets, buts also spraying against mosquitoes, intermittent preventive therapy for pregnant women, and the purchase of more effective new drugs against the disease.She added that USAID has also counted on training health staff and community activists to ensure greater sustainability in the preventive measures against malaria. Dunford said that USAID also pays special attention to agriculture, since this is the sector on which about 80 per cent of the Mozambican population depends for their survival. “We believe in Mozambique’s potential to become a supplier of foodstuffs to the region”, she said. “In addition the country has an excellent strategic position expressed in ports such as Beira and Nacala, and the trade corridors that radiate from them”. She cited examples of successful peasant associations, which, after training programmes supported by USAID, have proved able to sell their produce on their market. The associations have also obtained better access to improved seeds, and to agricultural machinery, as well as a guaranteed market for their surplus crops. US ambassador Douglas Griffiths said for his part that the US investment in Mozambique has been running at around 500 million dollars a year, much of it going towards strengthening the health sector.Despite Mozambique’s high rates of economic growth, the country is still extremely poor. The US, Griffiths pledged, would therefore pay special attention to supporting policies that would create jobs, improve education and reduce poverty.

I repeat – we don’t need a foreign boss!

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza declared on Sunday that the ruling Frelimo Party “is the party of dialogue, the party which, through an increasing multiplicity of channels, actions and programmes, promotes dialogue inside its own ranks and inside the Mozambican nation”.Speaking at the close of a three day meeting of the Frelimo Central Committee, Guebuza said that the very foundation of Frelimo, in 1962, was only possible “because of dialogue among Mozambicans of the most varied origins”.Through this dialogue “we developed an awareness of one and the same nationality, which wasn’t Portuguese”.Because of Frelimo’s commitment to dialogue, he argued, it had been able “to consolidate mechanisms for the construction of peace and embark on an exemplary reconciliation process”.Guebuza stressed national unity against the “narrow and stereotypical vision” of those who claim that resources and opportunities in one part of the country should only be for those who happen to live there.Those who thought like this “ignore that we overcame this way of looking at Mozambique and its people in 1962”, he said. “They ignore that the National Liberation Struggle was conducted by nationalists from various parts of this motherland of heroes. They ignore that Mozambicans from different regions are fighting together against poverty”.Dialogue, Guebuza explained, did not necessarily mean that the people involved agreed with each other, but it was “an important step towards sharing visions and proposed solutions for concrete challenges. Dialogue is an important mechanism for the construction of consensus”.It was “with Frelimo as a promoter of dialogue that we should win, in an overwhelming and convincing manner, the forthcoming municipal elections”, he declared.Guebuza added “it is in this environment created by Frelimo as a promoter of dialogue within Mozambican society, that we shall show those of our fellow countrymen who feel that they need a boss, a boss who must necessarily be foreign, that we are already a free and independent Mozambique, a country whose boss is the Mozambican people”. “I repeat – we don’t need a foreign boss”, he concluded.

EDM DISCUSSES NEW POWER LINE WITH ITS PARTNERS

The chairperson of the board of Mozambique’s electricity distribution company, EDM, Augusto Fernando, has announced that the company is working with its partners to finalise details of CENSUL – the project for a new electricity transmission line from the Zambezi Valley to Maputo. Among these partners, Fernando said, are the Portuguese electricity company REN, Eletrobras of Brazil, Eskom of South Africa and EDF of France. EDM is working with these companies on technical matters, preceding the construction of the CENSUL line, commonly referred to as “the backbone” of the Mozambican electricity grid.Fernando warned that the new line will also depend on the building of a new dam on the Zambezi at Mpanda Nkuwa, about 60 kilometres downstream from the existing dam at Cahora Bassa.A consortium headed by the Brazilian company Camargo Correia will build Mpanda Nkuwa, and work will be carried out simultaneously on the new dam and the new power line.A new transmission line is necessary, because the existing line, which carries Cahora Bassa power to South Africa, will be insufficient once more power sources come on stream – these include Mpanda Nkuwa, a second power station at Cahora Bassa, and coal fired power stations built by the mining companies Vale and Rio Tinto.The CENSUL line is budgeted at 2.5 billion US dollars, and is regarded as key to industrialization in Mozambique and in the regon. The project involves two parallel high voltage power lines running from Tete to Maputo, with five new substations (at Cataxa, Inchope, Vilanculos, Chibuto and Moamba). One will be an alternating current line operating at 400 kV, while the other will carry direct current at 500 kV.The new lines will reduce Mozambique’s dependence on South Africa for electricity. The current line south does not take Cahora Bassa power directly to Maputo. Instead the line goes to the Apollo sub-station in South Africa, and is then carried back into southern Mozambique on lines belonging to Eskom.The CENSUL project should solve inter-connection problems between the various sub-systems that form the national grid, and will encourage the development of new electricity generation projects, both thermal and hydro-electric. 

MUNICIPALITIES MUST RAISE MORE REVENUE

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Monday challenged Mozambican municipalities to make greater efforts to raise revenue.He was speaking in Maputo at the opening of a national meeting of municipalities, attended by mayors, chairpersons of municipal assemblies and cooperation partners, among others.“The level of revenue collection in our municipalities has been below what is desirable”, said Guebuza. “Additional commitment is required to improve this, because only in this way can resources be generated to finance sustainable local development projects and programmes”.He also called for better management capacity, strengthened local finance and good governance as fundamental elements for the success of the municipalities. Guebuza pledged that the central government will continue to support municipal development by allocating funds to the municipalities through the Municipal Compensation and Investment Funds and more recently the Strategic Programme for Urban Poverty Reduction. “However, the municipalities must continue searching for creative solutions tending to provide services of growing quality and diversity to their citizens”, the President stressed. In addition to the financial challenges, Guebuza stressed the need for the municipalities to improve their handling of informal settlements, the provision of infrastructures, and the management of urban land.  “The development of our cities presupposes the constant strengthening of our capacity to face the challenges of their modernisation”, he added. 

POLICE HUNT SUPERMARKET RAIDERS

The Mozambican police are hunting for a gang of armed thieves who attacked a supermarket last week in the Maputo neighbourhood of Malhangalene.Maputo City police spokesperson Orlando Mudumane told reporters on Monday that the thieves stole 50,000 meticais (about 1,660 US dollars) in cash, ten cell phones and a computer. He declined to name the supermarket.“The individuals entered the shop, pulled out a pistol and threatened the customers”, he said. “They took what they wanted and made their escape. Investigations are continuing in order to arrest the criminals”. Mudumane also said the police detained five people accused of stealing cars by passing dud cheques to three separate car rental companies. The five were named as Salvador Mulid, Antonio Chalosse, Pedro Ernesto, Mussa Aly and Estevao Macuvele Junior.“They would go to the rent-a-car companies to hire the most expensive vehicles”, he said. “They used company cheques for payment and took the cars”.But when the car rental companies tried to cash the cheques, they found that they bounced, and so they promptly denounced the swindle to the police. But by that time the gang had managed to steal six cars. However the police have succeeded in recovering all of them in Maputo city and province. Mudumane did not give the names of the companies whose cheques were used in this fraud. Mudumane said that, over the previous week, the authorities had denied entry into the country to 66 foreigners, some because their entry visas were forged, and some because they could not explain what they were going to do in Mozambique and what they would live on. Those denied entry included 19 Pakistanis, 15 Egyptians, 11 Bangladeshis, four Nigerians, three Ethiopians, three Somalis, two Kenyans, two Cameroonians, two Senegalese and two Vietnamese. During the week, the Maputo traffic police inspected 4,569 vehicles, of which 11 were seized because of various irregularities. 1,608 motorists were fined, and 37 were found to be driving under the influence of alcohol. Six motorists were arrested for offering bribes to the traffic police.

GUEBUZA URGES UAE BUSINESSES TO INVEST

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on Sunday urged businesses from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to invest in Mozambique “before it’s too late”.Speaking at a meeting in Dubai, with around 30 UAE business people, including the chairmen of companies that participate in the Mozambique-UAE Business Forum, Guebuza declared “Come and invest now. We shall receive you with open arms. If you delay, it could be too late”. Included on Guebuza’s delegation for his four day working visit to the UAE are 14 Mozambican businessmen, with interests in the areas of hydrocarbons, electricity, tourism, agro-business, transport and finance. Guebuza listed several reasons why businesses from what is one of the strongest economies in the Arab world should wish to invest in Mozambique, including a good investment climate and the availability of natural resources.He mentioned the massive reserves of natural gas recently discovered off the coast of northern Mozambique – but stressed this did not mean that attentions should be drawn exclusively to this resource.“We don’t want to be a country exclusively of gas”, said Guebuza. “We also want to focus our attentions on all the other areas that contribute to the growth of our Gross Domestic Product, such as agriculture and tourism”. The UAE has considerable experience in diversifying its economy, in order to ensure that the country does not depend solely on petroleum revenues. Dubai, for instance, has become a major tourist attraction, and the city includes the largest shopping centre in the world, as well as the world’s tallest building. GDP in Dubai does not depend on oil, but mostly on sectors such as tourism, transport, trade, construction and financial services. Guebuza stressed that investors in Mozambique also have access to the SADC (Southern African Development Community) free trade area, and hence to the South African market. Since Mozambique is covered by the United States’ African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), goods produced in Mozambique also have access to the US market. The Emirates businesses at the meeting expressed optimism about Mozambique’s potential. “The location of Mozambique is strategic”, one of the businessmen said. “Furthermore, the country has recorded noteworthy economic growth”. “When we travel to other countries, we are treated as investors”, he added, “but in Mozambique we are treated as brothers. So we shall do all we can to ensure that the UAE are not just investors, but serves as platform for cooperation with the Arab world”. Before travelling to Dubai, Guebuza visited the refinery in Abu Dhabi, the political capital of the UAE, and the Abu Dhabi shipyard, where ships of all types are built. At the refinery, petroleum engineer Mohamed Abbas Alkhoori explained that the company currently produces 85,000 barrels a day, compared with the 15,000 it produced when it started operations in 1976.

From the beastly ugly duckling!!!

The Matola City Committee of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party has passed a motion of censure against the governance of this southern city by mayor Arao Nhancale, even though he was elected on the Frelimo ticket in 2008.According to sources cited in the latest issue of the Sunday paper “Domingo”, the censure motion arose from a crisis in the relationship between Nhancale and most of the members of the City Committee. Frelimo Secretary-General Filipe Paunde, who is currently on a tour of Maputo province, said the motion was an unequivocal expression of the Committee’s “discontent at the way the municipality is being governed”.The motion “expresses the democracy within the party”, said Paunde. It was the City Committee that had promoted Nhancale as the Frelimo candidate and had supported his 2008 election campaign. But now it had withdrawn that support.“It’s not a good sign”, said Paunde. “It damages the Mayor’s reputation”.The motion has no immediate effect. It does not force Nhancale to resign – that would make little sense, since new municipal elections will be held on 20 November. But it now seems almost impossible for Nhancale to be chosen as the Frelimo mayoral candidate in these forthcoming elections.

MEGA-PROJECTS HIRE HUNDREDS OF MOZAMBICAN COMPANIES

There are now 471 small and medium Mozambican companies who have contracts to supply goods and services to the country’s mega-projects (such as the Mozal aluminium smelter, the natural gas treatment plant run by the South African petro-chemical giant Sasol, and the open cast coal mines operated by Vale of Brazil and the Anglo-Australian company, Rio Tinto).    A further 100 SMEs are occasional suppliers to the mega-projects, according to data provided at a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Ministry of Planning and Development, under way in the northern port of Nacala since Monday.    The income from supplies to the mega-projects rose from 45 million US dollars in 2002 to 350 million in 2011. The Ministry regards this figure as unsatisfactory, since the mega-projects still have to turn to foreign suppliers to meet many of their needs, given the inability of Mozambican companies to meet their demands.   According to the Minister of Planning and Development, Aiuba Cuereneia, cited in Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, 378 investment projects were approved in 2012, for a total investment of 4.8 billion US dollars. If all these projects were to come to fruition, they would create over 32,000 new jobs.   About two billion dollars of this proposed investment is concentrated in 22 projects to be undertaken in the Nacala Special Economic Zone. But these 22 projects will only create about 6,000 new jobs.   The meeting indicated that among the challenges facing the Mozambican economy are a poor business environment and the high interest rates charged by the commercial banks.   “We agree that improving the business environment is a challenge – covering procedures, such as the time and cost involved in starting a business, access to credit, plus the high interest rates”, said Antonio Cruz, a senior official in the Ministry at a Monday briefing with reporters.    He said that, in order to lower the cost of investment, a strategy to develop the financial sector has been drawn up, which should be approved later this year. Specific measures to improve the business environment include guarantee funds from Denmark to benefit business activities.   Although the central bank repeatedly cut its own interest rates last year, the commercial banks have been slow to follow suit.   The Standing Lending Facility (the interest rate paid by the commercial banks to the central bank for money borrowed on the Interbank Money Market) currently stands at 9.5 per cent. But the average interest rate charged by the commercial banks is more than twice this figure, and in January was 19.83 per cent. 

THREATS FROM RENAMO OFFICIAL IN NACALA

Another official of Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, has threatened that Renamo will not only boycott the municipal elections scheduled for 20 November, but will make it impossible for them to be held. Cited in Monday’s issue of the Nampula electronic newsheet “Wamphula Fax”, the Renamo Nacala Port district delegate, Benjamin Cortes, promised that Renamo will undermine the entire electoral procedure, and that it will start by sabotaging the voter registration due to start on 25 May.  “There were never fair and transparent elections here in Nacala”, he claimed. “We have just witnessed farces in which Frelimo was the protagonist, using the electoral bodies to manipulate the result”. Cortes seems to have forgotten that, in 2003, Renamo won the municipal elections in Nacala, and that for the next five years a Renamo mayor governed the city. There have been three municipal elections in Nacala – Renamo boycotted the first, won the second and lost the third (the loss in 2008 was narrow, and the Renamo candidate for mayor forced Frelimo into a second round run-off). Cortes also accused Frelimo of bussing in citizens who are not citizens of Nacala to swell the ranks of Frelimo voters. He alleged that people are transported from Nacala-a-Velha, Mossuril, Mozambique Island and Monapo to register and to vote. But Monapo and Mozambique Island are also municipalities: it would make no sense to bus people from these areas to Nacala, since on the day they will only be able to vote once – the indelible ink applied to voters’ fingers guarantees that. The call for a boycott has divided Renamo in Nacala, where some members wanted to try and regain control of the municipality. Influential Renamo figures in Nacala are reportedly leaving the party because of the boycott policy .  Cortes brushed this aside, and claimed that Renamo is stronger than ever in Nacala. He even boasted that Frelimo members are secret Renamo sympathizers. “Most of them have Frelimo cards to keep their jobs, but ideologically they’re with Renamo”, he said. 

News parliament

Lutero Simango, leader of the parliamentary group of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), claimed on Wednesday that “the political freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution are being violated systematically in order to silence the voice of reason, of criticism and of ideas contrary to those of the government”.Speaking at the opening of a sitting of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Simango said that, outside of Maputo and the two cities with MDM mayors, Beira and Quelimane, “hindrances to the exercise of political activity are taking on alarming proportions”.He said that MDM offices were being vandalized, its flags burnt, and its members harassed and beaten. When such acts are reported to the police, Simango claimed, “they take no action against those responsible”.Unlike similar allegations made by the former rebel movement Renamo, Simango backed up his claims with specific examples. He said that in the central town of Catandica, the Barue district MDM mobilization officer was detained on Saturday, and the following day “influential members of the MDM district delegation were detained for several hours “in an act of harassment typical of anti-democratic regimes which survive on the basis of police force”.The MDM mobilization officer was only released when, on Monday pressure was put on the local Attorney’s office to intervene.Simango claimed that when the MDM in the southern city of Xai-Xai asked for police protection for a march marking the fourth anniversary of the creation of the party, the police asked the local leadership of the ruling Frelimo Party whether it should satisfy the MDM request.“This is further evidence that the political manipulation of the police is real”, he added, suggesting that “a full explanation should be given to the police about their mission in Mozambique”.When the central government remains indifferent to such abuses, “then we are faced with a government that has resigned from its responsibilities and is incapable of guaranteeing the democratic rule of law”.Simango also alleged that Radio Mozambique is in danger of losing its reputation for impartiality because of “strong political interference in the editorial management” of the public service broadcaster.He claimed that when journalists produce items with contents critical of the government, “they are warned and these reports are shelved”, and that some heads of provincial radio newsrooms “practice censorship and oblige the journalists to practice self-censorship to keep their jobs”.In chat programmes, Simango alleged that commentators critical of the government are overlooked in favour of those who share the government’s positions.He warned that lack of editorial independence in Radio Mozambique “could have great implications for Mozambican society, prejudicing democratization and the freedoms of thought and expression”.

Regardless of all threats made by the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party will participate in the forthcoming municipal elections “with all our intelligence and strength”, declared the leader of the Frelimo parliamentary group, Margarida Talapa, on Wednesday.At the opening session of the first sitting this year of the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Talapa noted that Renamo had first tried to block the new electoral legislation which was eventually approved in December, and now threatens, not only to boycott the elections, but to make it impossible to hold them.“This party says it won’t participate and it won’t allow the voters to go to the ballot box to choose freely their local leaders”, she said. “This is a clear demonstration of the arrogance that is characteristic of Renamo, and of disrespect for the constitution and laws of our state”.“The threats that we hear do not frighten us”, she added, “because they are no more than cries of despair from a party that is incapable of respecting the basic principles of democracy, and of competing with others on a footing of equality”.She wondered whether the real problem with Renamo was its “visible disorganization”, or went deeper, and was “a lack of strategy and an inability to present itself to the electorate with concrete ideas for the development of Mozambique”.Renamo knows perfectly well regular elections are the way the Mozambican people choose their leaders, said Talapa – so how could it be explained that Renamo was now refusing to take part in elections.“Does it just want to be a simple pressure group?”, she asked. “Don’t we deserve a better opposition than this?” Frelimo, Talapa announced, would prepare for the local elections at a meeting of its Central Committee, scheduled for 22-24 March. That meeting “will fine tune our electoral strategy to ensure the overwhelming victory of Frelimo and its candidates in all the country’s municipalities”.

“We in Frelimo reaffirm that our participation and victory in the coming elections is a national imperative”, she declared.In her opening speech, Talapa’s opposite number in the Renamo parliamentary group, Angelina Enoque, did not so much as mention the municipal elections. This sitting of the Assembly is scheduled to elect members of a new National Elections Commission (CNE), but Enoque gave no indication whether Renamo will take up the two seats to which it is entitled on the CNE.Instead, Enoque appealed to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama to come to the rescue. “The people are crying out for help and only you can save it”, she said. “Only you can save us, the land and the people”.Enoque claimed that “the overwhelming majority” are with Dhlakama, “because they are suffering the atrocities of the government, hunger, misery, discrimination, exclusions and corruption”.“Somebody needs to save this democracy, this peace, this freedom, which cost so much to win”, she declared. Enoque claimed the government is “incapable and incompetent to manage natural disasters and to soften the suffering of the people”.She claimed that the government had learnt nothing from the massive floods of 2000 and that the flooding of January and February this year were in exactly the same areas. A glance at the map shows that this is largely untrue. Only the Limpopo Valley in Gaza province saw major flooding in both years. The floods on the Incomati, Save and Buzi rivers in 2000 were not repeated in 2013, and this year’s flooding in Zambezia was not foreshadowed by anything in 2000.Enoque claimed that, through American satellites, the government knew of disasters in advance, “but the only measures it takes are to mobilise people living in low lying areas to resettle on higher, safer ground”.Unlike Renamo, the second opposition force in the Assembly, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), does take the forthcoming municipal elections seriously. The head of the MDM parliamentary group, Lutero Simango, said that the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service “has a great challenge ahead of it to demonstrate its professionalism and its independence from political parties, by handling the voter registration with impartiality and responsibility”.He said the MDM urges all citizens of voting age living in the municipalities “to register and obtain their voter’s card”, and pledged that his party will mobilise all its members and supporters to register.