31 October 2008
Maputo — As from Saturday, Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party is sending central brigades to all provinces to help its drive for victory in the forthcoming municipal elections, the party's secretary for mobilization and propaganda, Edson Macuacua told reporters on Friday.
The brigades are each led by a member of the Party's Political Commission, and include central committee members, members of the government and other senior party cadres. In the provinces they will work with the existing provincial and municipal brigades.
Macuacua stressed that Frelimo's goal is victory in all 43 municipalities. It intends to hold on to the 28 municipalities where there are already Frelimo mayors, win in the ten towns raised to municipal status this year, and conquer the five municipalities where the opposition is currently in control.
"Frelimo began preparing for these elections the moment it was declared the winner of the last ones", said Macuacua. "We are duly prepared and organised to wage a victorious campaign".
Frelimo had the best candidates, because they had been chosen "in an open, transparent, democratic process", he added. It also had the best election manifestos "because we know the terrain and we are treating the problems of the municipalities with realism".
The Frelimo campaign, Macuacua promised, would be based on the achievement of both the Frelimo municipal authorities and the Frelimo central government, and the key objective would remain the struggle to overcome poverty.
As for the five municipalities where the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, is in power, Macuacua accused the Renamo mayors of ruinous mismanagement. In the largest Renamo-held municipality, the central city of Beira, "the only major achievements in the past five years have been those funded by the central government", he claimed.
Thus the excellent highway leading out of Beira had been rebuilt as part of the central government's road programme, and the municipality could take no credit for it. Roads which were a municipal responsibility, inside the Beira suburbs, were in a lamentable state of disrepair, Macuacua said.
He accused the mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango (elected on the Renamo ticket in 2003, but now running as an independent), of trying to pose as the architect of improvements that were actually the work of the central government, such as the electricity grid. "That's why the energy project in Beira was inaugurated twice", he said.
But did not Simango have a reputation for competence?, reporters asked . "His own party (Renamo) says he's extremely incompetent", Macuacua replied, "and we see no reason to disagree".
AIM pointed out that in the Beira Municipal Assembly a fortnight ago, the head of the Frelimo group had praised the Renamo Sofala provincial delegate Fernando Mbararano as "enlightened and sensible" because he, and five other Renamo Assembly members had voted with Frelimo against Simango's supporters. Yet on Thursday the same Mbararano was threatening to disrupt the elections in the town of Gorongosa, if the National Elections Commission (CNE) disqualifies the Renamo candidate for mayor. So what did Frelimo really think of Mbararano - was he "enlightened" or just a criminal?
"That man's sick!", exclaimed Macuacua. "He's completely incoherent, but sometimes he has moments of lucidity".
As for Gorongosa, "there must be respect for the law", he insisted, and the CNE "cannot be held hostage just because a political party, in this case Renamo, is disorganized".
Renamo has problems with two of its mayoral candidates who have been unable to produce a valid residence certificate. Under the municipal election legislation candidates must have lived in the municipality for at least six months.
Cristovao Soares, the Renamo candidate in Gorongosa, has reportedly only lived in the town for four months. As for Manuel Bissopo, the Renamo candidate for mayor of Dondo, also in Sofala, he happens to live, not in Dondo, but in Beira.
Indeed, Bissopo is not only a resident of Beira - he was a member of Beira City Council until September, when Simango sacked him.
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