5 July 2009
Maputo — The chairpersons of two of the most important commissions in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, are unlikely to win seats in the next legislature, following the selection of candidates for the 28 October parliamentary elections by the Maputo city committee of the ruling Frelimo Party.
Maputo city will have 18 seats in the next Assembly, according to the provisional breakdown of seats issued last month by the National Elections Commission (CNE). The head of the Frelimo list, as in all provinces, will be chosen by the Party's Political Commission, and the other 17 candidates were selected on Saturday, in the culmination of inner-party elections that began in Frelimo branches on 20 May.
Perhaps the greatest shock was that the highly respected chairperson of the Assembly's Plan and Budget Commission, Virginia Videira, did not make it onto the list of full candidates. She is a supplementary candidate - who will sit in the Assembly only if full candidates die, resign or are temporarily absent.
Ali Dauto, the chairperson of the Legal Affairs Commission, the body that vets all bills for conformity with the constitution and existing laws, did scrape onto the list, but in 17th position. Although Maputo City is a Frelimo stronghold, the opposition is likely to win a couple of seats, which means that not all the Frelimo candidates will be in the next parliament. At the bottom of the list of full candidates, it is likely that Dauto will not enter.
Both Videira and Dauto have headed their commissions uninterruptedly since the election of the first multi-party parliament in 1994.
The candidate who topped the Frelimo poll was a young deputy in the current parliament, Antonio Niquice. Former education minister Alcido Nguenha was in seventh position, and the current governor of Maputo City, Rosa da Silva, is tenth on the list.
One of Frelimo's most formidable parliamentary orators, Teodato Hunguana, is set to return to the Assembly. He was elected in 14th position on the Maputo city list.
Hunguana was on the Assembly's governing board, its Standing Commission, during the 1999-2004 parliament. But in 2004, Frelimo chose Hunguana as one of its appointees to the Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of constitutional law, which also deals with electoral disputes.
There was some speculation when Hunguana declined to be nominated for a second term on the Constitutional Council, but his appearance on the Frelimo list of parliamentary candidates seems to indicate a desire to return to active politics.
Among the other senior figures who did not make it onto the list of full candidates are a former chief of staff of the armed forces, Antonio Hama Thai, senior businessman Hermenegildo Gamito, and the former head of the Maputo branch of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), Antonio Frangoulis. Hama Thai is a supplementary candidate, but Gamito and Frangoulis are not on the list at all.
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