Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
22 June 2009
Maputo — Opposition deputies of the Renamo-Electoral Union coalition on Monday boycotted en masse the annual state of the nation address given by President Armando Guebuza to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
In 2008, the Renamo deputies attended the first few minutes of Guebuza's address, then noisily left the room. This time they were absent altogether - with one exception. Maximo Dias, the general secretary of the Mozambique Nationalist Movement (Monamo), one of the minor parties allied to Renamo in the coalition, had apparently not been informed of the boycott.
He sat in splendid isolation on the Renamo benches, signed the attendance register, had a few private words with Assembly chairperson Eduardo Mulembue - and then left. He told reporters he had been surprised by the boycott, and had learnt that the rest of the Renamo parliamentary group were in a meting. Thus, when Guebuza delivered his speech, all 90 opposition deputies were absent.
On Monday afternoon, Renamo issued a statement, signed by the head of the Renamo parliamentary group, Viana Magalhaes, justifying its boycott, which blamed Guebuza personally for the Assembly's rejection of changes in the election law proposed by Renamo.
The statement mentioned two specific objections to the election law. The first is that each political party is only allowed one monitor at each polling station. Renamo wants three monitors per station on the grounds that there are three ballot papers (for the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections). This restriction affects all parties, including the ruling Frelimo Party.
Secondly, Renamo claims that the law states that, if only 100 people vote in a polling station, but there are several hundred votes inside the ballot box, it is the stuffed ballot box that counts and not the names ticked off the register.
Renamo is referring to the provision in the law whereby votes are not thrown away merely because a tired polling station officer failed to scratch off the name of the voter concerned. Slight discrepancies are to be expected, and in these cases the votes in the ballot box do take priority over the number of names ticked off the register. This provision has been in every Mozambican electoral law since 1994, and Renamo did not complain until December 2006.
The theoretical huge discrepancies that the Renamo communiqué mentions have not happened in previous elections, and should be detected by the polling station monitors. Avoiding such frauds is precisely why parties have monitoring rights.
The Renamo statement also accuses Guebuza of "egocentric enrichment" and "dominating the main economic units of the country", mentioning some companies in which Guebuza is a minority shareholder, and many others in which he is not.
The statement denounces an alleged "assault" on state institutions "to pressure state employees to become Frelimo members as a condition for access to and promotion in the public administration and in public companies". This is an accusation that Renamo has made for years without bothering to present any evidence. Renamo has never presented a single person who was denied a job or promotion in the state because he or she failed to join Frelimo.
Magalhaes ends the statement by claiming that the Renamo boycott in intended "to show the Mozambican people and electorate that it is opposed to the time wasting manoeuvres of the President of Frelimo who has eliminated democratic dialogue in the country".
It is, however, difficult to hold a dialogue with people who are forever boycotting meetings. Guebuza has repeatedly invited Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama to state events, from the presidential inauguration of February 2005 onwards, and Dhlakama has never attended.
As runner-up in the 2004 presidential election, Dhlakama has a seat on the Council of State, a body that advises Guebuza. But Dhlakama refused to attend the Council meeting earlier this year that approved 28 October as the date for this year's election.
The sole impact of Renamo's Monday boycott is that the Renamo deputes will be marked absent and will lose a day's wages.
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