POLL SHOWS LUISA DIOGO MOST POPULAR FRELIMO CANDIDATE

Of all the people whose names have been mentioned as possible candidates of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo in October’s presidential elections, former Prime Minister Luisa Diogo is by far the most popular, according to an opinion poll published in the latest issue of the independent weekly “Savana”.She massively outpolled all three of the names on the short list drawn up by the Frelimo Political Commission in December – current Prime Minister Alberto Vaquina, Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco, and Defence Minister Filipe Nyussi.The poll was undertaken between 10 and 18 February by a Mozambican team with technical support from the Brazilian company, Nova Global Pesquisas. 1,348 people of voting age were interviewed by telephone in seven of Mozambique’s 11 provinces (Maputo City, Maputo Province, Cabo Delgado, Nampula, Zambezia, Tete, and Sofala). Asked who they thought would be the best Frelimo presidential candidate, 41 per cent named Luisa Diogo, and a further 19 per cent gave her as their second choice. She was followed by another former prime minister, Aires Ali, on 19 per cent, then the former speaker of parliament, Eduardo Mulembue (13 per cent), and the former head of the Frelimo parliamentary group, Manuel Tome (10 per cent).Of the Political Commission’s three “pre-candidates”, Vaquina did best, with five per cent, though 20 per cent named him as their second choice. Pacheco had only three per cent of first preferences, and Nyussi one per cent. “Others” had one per cent, four per cent wanted none of the Frelimo candidates, and three per cent did not know or did not answer.

When first and second preferences are added together, the results were as follows:
Luisa Diogo – 57 per cent
Aires Ali – 37 per cent
Eduardo Mulembue – 29 per cent
Alberto Vaquina – 25 per cent
Manuel Tome – 16 per cent
Jose Pacheco – 7 per cent
Filipe Nyussi – 2 per cent
Others – 2 per cent

Perhaps even more significant, the poll showed that Diogo is the Frelimo candidate most likely to defeat the opposition in a presidential election.Asked who they would vote for, if the election was held tomorrow, 33 per cent of the sample chose Diogo, with another 15 per cent naming her as second choice.The second most popular figure was the mayor of Beira, and leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), Daviz Simango, with 14 per cent. He was followed by Aires Ali (13 per cent), Eduardo Mulembue (10 per cent), Alberto Vaquina (9 per cent), and Manuel Tome (8 per cent).The poll is very bad news for what is supposed to be the largest opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo. Only two per cent of the sample named the Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama as their first choice.

If the first and second preferences are added together, the poll gives the following results:
Luisa Diogo – 48 per cent
Aires Ali – 28 per cent
Daviz Simango – 25 per cent
Eduardo Mulembue – 24 per cent
Alberto Vaquina – 21 per cent
Manuel Tome – 14 per cent
Jose Pacheco – 6 per cent
Afonso Dhlakama – 5 per cent
Filipe Nyussi – 3 per cent
Others – 2 per cent

When the results are broken down by province, Diogo leads in five of them (Maputo province and city, Tete, Zambezia and Nampula). In her home province of Tete, she had 48.1 per cent of first preferences. In Sofala, often regarded as an opposition stronghold, Simango had 42.8 of the first preferences. Sofala is Dhlakama’s home province – but only seven per cent of the Sofala sample would vote for him. In Cabo Delgado, Diogo had only 13.9 per cent of first preferences. Three of the other Frelimo possibilities did better – Vaquina (34.7 per cent), Ali (14.9 per cent) and Tome (14.4 per cent).Diogo has a huge advantage among women voters. 46.8 per cent of the women in the sample said they would vote for her. She also topped the poll among male voters, but with 23.2 per cent. Diogo is also the favourite among young voters. 36.2 per cent of those aged from 18 to 24 said they would vote for her, and 34 per cent of those aged 25 to 34. Her popularity drops off among older voters, but she only lost her dominant position among those aged over 55. In this group, she took 18.8 per cent of the first preferences, compared to 21.1 per cent for Vaquina. Luisa Diogo was deputy finance minister, and then finance minister under the governments headed by President Joaquim Chissano from 1995 to 2004, and she received much of the credit for negotiating reductions in Mozambique’s foreign debt, under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative.Chissano appointed her Prime Minister in February 2004, and his successor, Armando Guebuza kept her in that post until 2010, when she was replaced by Aires Ali. In 2012, Diogo lost her seat on the Frelimo Political Commission, but she remains a member of the Central Committee.