FRELIMO ELECTS ITS INHAMBANE CANDIDATE

Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party has chosen Benedito Guimino as its candidate for the mayoral by-election in the southern city of Inhambane, due to be held on 18 April.Guimino was elected at an extraordinary meeting of the Frelimo Inhambane City Committee on Thursday. He won 24 votes, against 14 for Joao Muchine and six for Graca Nhaliginga. The three candidates had all been previously approved by the Frelimo Political Commission which considered the names on Wednesday. The three names were proposed by Frelimo branches in Inhambane.“This is the culmination of a process of internal democracy”, the Frelimo Central Committee Secretary for Mobilisation and Propaganda, Edson Macuacua, told reporters. It was not the Party leadership that proposed the names, but the members, and the role of the Political Commission was merely to approve them. Guimino is a chemistry teacher who trained at Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University. He has lived in Inhambane city for the past 13 years where he teaches at the Emilia Dausse and Muele secondary schools. Before moving to Inhambane, he worked at the Ministry of Health’s National Medicine Control Laboratory in Maputo.Meanwhile, the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) on Thursday deposited the nomination papers for its candidate, Fernando Nhaca, including supporting signatures from hundreds of Inhambane voters, with the National Elections Commission (CNE). All candidates for mayor must by nominated by at least one per cent of the registered electorate of the municipality. In Inhambane’s case that is about 350 signatures.The closing date for nominations is next Tuesday, but Frelimo believes it will have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary signatures for Guimino before then.The by-election looks like being a straight fight between Frelimo and the MDM. The main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, has announced that it is boycotting the election, and none of the extra-parliamentary opposition parties has shown an interest in standing.Voter registration in Inhambane begins on Saturday to give all those who have attained the voting age of 18 since the 2009 general elections the opportunity to register. People who have moved to Inhambane from elsewhere in the country will also be able to register, and those citizens whose voter cards have been lost or damaged can apply for new ones. Felisberto Naife, the director of the CNE’s executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), cited in Friday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, said that all the logistics are in place for the registration. He expected that about 3,000 new voters would be registered.