23 October 2007
Maputo — Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party has proposed that the country's first elections for provincial assemblies should be held on the same date as the next presidential and parliamentary elections, in late 2009.
This proposal takes the form of a constitutional amendment. The constitution as it currently stands orders the provincial elections to be held within three years of the constitution taking effect, which was in mid-January 2005.
So currently the elections are scheduled for 16 January 2008, a date which most observers regard as virtually impossible, partly because it is in the middle of the rainy season, and partly because voter registration has been so fraught with problems that holding elections in January risks disenfranchising millions of people.
Initially, Frelimo declined to reveal publicly the content of its constitutional amendment, pending a meeting between the head of the Frelimo parliamentary group Manuel Tome, and his counterpart from the Renamo-Electoral Union opposition, Maria Moreno, at which Renamo would be informed of the Frelimo proposal.
But by Tuesday afternoon, Moreno had not replied to Tome's invitation, and so the Frelimo parliamentary group decided to release its proposal to the press.
Explaining its position, the Frelimo group argues that holding the general and provincial elections simultaneously "responds to a generalised position of many sectors of Mozambican society, and allows the main stakeholders in the elections, and the electoral bodies greater serenity in preparing for and organising the various stages of the elections".
Frelimo added that making the general and provincial elections coincide arises "from the need to ensure simultaneity of the terms of office of representative and executive state bodies, from the fact that the provincial elections cover the entire country, and from the need to reduce costs".
The Frelimo parliamentary group is a late convert to this position, which has been argued in much of the press for months - including by one of Frelimo's own top intellectuals, Sergio Vieira, head of the Zambezi Planning Office.
But changing this article in the constitution requires cooperation from Renamo. Ordinary constitutional amendments require a two thirds majority, and changing the constitution within five years of the last set of amendments requires a 75 per cent majority.
Two thirds of the Assembly's 250 members is 167, and three quarters is 188. Frelimo only has 160 deputies. Thus changing anything at all in the constitution requires agreement between Frelimo and Renamo.
Prospects do not look too bright. In a television interview on Monday night, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama dismissed "games with the parliamentary groups", and demanded negotiations between the Frelimo and Renamo leaderships. Doubtless this explains Moreno's failure to reply to Tome's invitation.
The spokesperson for the Frelimo parliamentary group, Feliciano Mata, told AIM that Frelimo takes its parliamentary group very seriously, and ensures that it is always headed by a member of the party's most powerful body, the Political Commission. Should Frelimo deputies ever elect a head who was not already on the Political Commission, the Commission would be obliged, under the Party's statutes, to immediately co-opt him or her.
Renamo does not have the same practice, and Maria Moreno seems to enjoy little power or authority within her party.
Mata pointed out that the parliamentary groups, far from being "games", as Dhlakama imagined, are enshrined in the Constitution, and have the power to propose laws and constitutional amendments (which the Frelimo Political Commission and its Renamo equivalent do not).
"Amending the constitution is a parliamentary matter", said Mata.
"It's up to the two parliamentary groups to establish the necessary dialogue". Despite Dhlakama's statements, Mata remained optimistic that "good sense will prevail within Renamo".
Constitutional amendments take precedence over all other matters on the Assembly's agenda. Thus the Assembly's governing board, the Standing Commission, must insert the Frelimo proposal into the agenda at the earliest possible opportunity - possibly as early as this Thursday.
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