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Mozambique: Divisions Within Renamo Over Beira Mayor
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
24 June 2008
Posted to the web 24 June 2008
Maputo
Mozambique's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, is sharply divided over who should be the party's candidate for mayor of the country's second largest city, Beira, in the forthcoming municipal elections.
The party's leader, Afonso Dhlakama, has already made clear that he wants the current mayor, Daviz Simango, to run for a second five year term of office. But a strong current of opinion within Renamo would rather run Manuel Pereira, who was a clandestine Renamo recruiter in Beira during the war of destabilisation. He was later Renamo provincial delegate in Sofala province, and is a member of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
Beira is easily the largest and most important city won by Renamo in the 2003 municipal elections. The bitter dispute within Renamo, however, might open the path for a victory by the ruling Frelimo Party.
A senior Renamo figure in Beira, Mario Barbito, has now accused Simango of plotting to destroy Renamo. Barbito went to the Beira daily paper "Diario de Mocambique" with his complaints, claiming to represent "a vast group of Renamo members" in the city.
He said that, in his five years as mayor, Simango "has done nothing visible to benefit the residents of Beira, and particularly the members of Renamo". In the peripheral neighbourhoods that voted overwhelmingly for Renamo, Simango "has done absolutely nothing".
Things that had improved in Beira, such as the water supply and electricity systems, were the work of the central government, not of the municipality, Barbito pointed out. Roads, however, are a municipal responsibility - and "the roads in this city are in a dreadful state".
"What Daviz Simango did was to promote his own image, and a he took a free ride from Renamo to do that", exclaimed Barbito. "In Renamo we don't even know him. He has no authority to hold the meetings he's been addressing in the neighbourhoods, insulting Manuel Pereira, calling him a brute and an opportunist".
One longstanding complaint against Simango is that he is not actually a member of Renamo. He is a member of the National Convention Party (PCN), one of the minor parties allied to Renamo in the Electoral Union coalition. "We are betting on Manuel Pereira, because he's genuinely from Renamo", said Barbito, "whereas Simango, being from the PCN, just wants to turn Renamo into a back yard to satisfy his own private interests".
He even accused Simango of turning Beira City Council into "a club where his relatives hold all the most senior positions".
"We are trying to save Renamo", said Barbito. "We want to transform it from the liberation movement it once was into a political party with democratic structures".
Despite his attacks on Simango and thus implicitly on Dhlakama, Barbito insisted that Renamo is not split. In the next breath, however, he dismissed another senior Renamo figure, Agostinho Ussore, as "a PCN infiltrator in Renamo".
He claimed that even in 2003 Renamo members in the densely populated Beira neighbourhood of Munhava had rejected Simango, and he was only accepted as the candidate after a meeting chaired by Dhlakama that lasted for many hours. The problem for Simango's opponents then was that Pereira declined to stand, alleging personal reasons and his other tasks within Renamo.
"We decidedly don't want Daviz Simango", insisted Barbito, "because what he represents has nothing to do with us. We are not going to allow someone to come along who wants to destroy us. All this is being done to destroy Renamo".
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When "Diario de Mocambique" asked Simango for his reaction, he decline to comment on Barbito's attacks.
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| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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