NYUSI PLEDGES TO DEFEND RIGHTS OF ELDERLY

Filipe Nyusi, the presidential candidate of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party, declared on Wednesday that, if elected, he will guarantee protection of the rights of the elderly.

Speaking in Govuro district, in the southern province of Inhambane, on the UN-decreed Internatonal Day of Older Persons, Nyusi said that the state allowances paid to poverty-stricken elderly people would continue under any government that he headed. He told the Govuro rally that the elderly have made an important contribution to the country, and so the state has a duty to take care of them. He pledged that, if elected, he would do all in his power to ensure that the elderly have access to good medical care, and to centres where they can study, or undertake activities such as handicrafts to increase their income. Above all he promised to protect the elderly from violence. There has been a wave of horrific attacks, including murder, against elderly people, mostly women, who are accused of witchcraft by members of their own families. Nyusi warned that young people who disrespect and abuse their own parents are unlikely to have much luck in their own lives.Nyusi recalled the saying of the country’s first President, Samora Machel, that the elderly are the country’s “living libraries”, because they transmit to younger generations the knowledge they have accumulated over the decades.Before leaving Manica province the previous day, Nyusi declined to comment on allegations by Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, that the Nyusi campaign was costing 300 million US dollars. Speaking in the provincial capital, Chimoio, Nyusi said he had no time to waste speaking about other candidates and their campaigns, or to comment on their claims. He said he preferred to talk with his fellow-countrymen so they could help him improve his programme for governance.“My campaign is to discuss with the people what I should do in the event that they elect me as President”, he said. “I am not going to waste my time commenting about what the others say about my campaign or about me”. 

Dhlakama had claimed that Frleimo is using public money in its campaign – and indeed it is, since the electoral law obliges the state to subsidise election campaigns.The National Elections Commission (CNE) allocated 7.7 million meticais (about 251,000 US dollars) to the Nyusi campaign. The same amount was allocated to Dhlakama, and to the third presidential candidate, Daviz Simango, of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).State money for the political parties depends on how many seats parliamentary seats they are contesting. Frelimo, Renamo, the MDM and two minor parties are contesting all seats, and each is receiving a further 1.2 million meticais.Dhlakama claimed that “not even Obama” had spent as much money on a presidential campaign as Nyusi. But in fact, in the American presidential elections of 2012, both Barack Obama and his republican opponent Mitt Romney, spent over a billion dollars on their campaigns. According to the accounts which the campaigns filed with the Federal Elections Commission, Obama spent 1.123 billion dollars, and Romney 1.019 billion (and these figures do not include last minute advertising from some of the major campaign donors).