Guerrilla with clean criminal record

Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo on Monday delivered the criminal record certificate of its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, to the Constitutional Council, the body that vets all presidential candidates.When Dhlakama’s nomination papers were delivered on 11 July, the criminal record certificate was missing, although this document is a legal requirement for all candidates. Speaking to reporters immediately after handing in the document, Renamo representative Andre Majidir said that his party had now complied with all the legal requirements for Dhlakama’s candidature. “Renamo has now delivered the document that was missing”, he said, “It doesn’t matter how the document was dealt with. All the legal steps were followed. So there is a guarantee that our president will participate in the 15 October elections”.Majidir thus refused to explain exactly how the document was obtained. The appearance of the certificate surprised reporters because Dhlakama is still in hiding in a Renamo base on the slopes of the Gorongosa mountain range, in the central province of Sofala. To obtain a criminal record certificate, citizens must present themselves physically, and their fingerprints must be taken.It is therefore suspected that a notary went to Dhlakama’s base where he took the Renamo leader’s fingerprints, and issued the document. This would be the second time that Mozambican state bodies have accommodated Dhlakama’s requirements to become a presidential candidate. 

In May a voter registration brigade went to meet Dhlakama to register him as a voter and issue him with a voter card – only registered voters are entitled to stand as election candidates.Dhlakama’s criminal record certificate was delivered on the final day for the submission of nomination papers for presidential candidates. According to Tuesday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, by the end of the day the Constitutional Council had received nominations from 11 would-be candidates. In addition to Dhlakama, these include the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party, former defence minister Filipe Nyusi, and the mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango, who is running for the second largest opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).There are also candidates from eight minor parties, including Raul Domingos, once the number two figure in Renamo, and now leader of his own party, the PDD (Party for Peace, Democracy and Development); Yaqub Sibindy, leader of the Mozambique Independent Party (PIMO), which is a thinly disguised Islamic party; Cornelio Quivela, a former Renamo deputy, who now heads the Mozambique Humanitarian Party (PAHUMO); Miguel Mabote of the Labour Party (PT); and Joao Massango, general secretary of the Ecologist Party.The Constitutional Council must now analyse carefully all the documentation submitted, to check that the paperwork from the candidates is in line with the legal requirements. In particular, the Council will check the validity of all the supporting signatures.Each presidential candidate must submit supporting signatures from at least 10,000 registered voters, each of them authenticated by a notary. This is the hurdle at which the candidates of minor parties fell prior to the 2009 general elections – the Council found that they did not have sufficient valid signatures, and in some cases had forged signatures.