7 July 2009
Maputo — The Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the opposition party led by the mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango, on Tuesday registered with the National Elections Commission (CNE) to take part in the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 28 October.
The MDM national election agent, Jose Manuel de Sousa, delivered the paperwork - including a copy of the party's statutes, a certificate of the MDM's registration as a political party with the Ministry of Justice, the party's symbol (a cockerel against the rising sun), and the party's declaration of intent to participate in all three elections.
Sousa was once an official in the former rebel movement Renamo in Beira, and his delegation clearly expressed the MDM's origins as a breakaway from Renamo - it included Ivette Fernandes, widow of Renamo general secretary Evo Fernandes, murdered in Lisbon in 1987, parliamentarian Ismael Mussa, who resigned from Renamo in June, former Renamo deputies Dionisio Quelhas and Linette Oloffson, and Barnabe Lucas Nkomo, author of a biography of Simango's father, Uria Simango (once the deputy president of the liberation movement, Frelimo, but expelled in 1971, and executed after Mozambican independence).
Registration with the CNE is just the first step. The MDM has not yet delivered the nomination papers for any of its candidates. Sousa told reporters he expected to have the nomination papers ready by 25 July.
As for the party's presidential candidate, Simango himself, Sousa declined to give any date for delivering his nomination papers to the Constitutional Council, which vets all presidential candidates. "We are still well within the legal deadline", he said.
Candidates for all three elections must deliver their nomination papers by 29 July. The CNE must publish the lists of parliamentary and provincial assembly candidates by 1 August.
On Monday, the MDM inaugurated its national headquarters in Maputo. To date, the MDM has been operating from Beira, but it is a legal requirement for registered political parties that they should have a head office in the capital.
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