Maputo — On Monday parliamentary deputies of Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo rioted in the parliamentary chamber, and on Tuesday they capped this by walking out en masse of the final session of this parliamentary sitting.

This session was the formal closing of the sitting and, as usual, consisted of three speeches - from the head of the Renamo parliamentary group, Viana Magalhaes, his opposite number in the majority Frelimo Party, Manuel Tome, and the parliamentary chairperson, Eduardo Mulembue.

But Renamo only listened to the first speech, applauding at regular intervals. before marching noisily out of the chamber.

Magalhaes abused his position by speaking for two hours - such speeches usually last no more than 45 minutes. Almost the entire two hours was devoted to a litany of insults against Frelimo and the Mozambican government. The abuse was not even interesting abuse - so monotonous was the tirade that this reporter had difficulty keeping his eyes open.

Magalhaes blamed Frelimo for everything that went wrong in the country - from the devastating explosions at a Maputo arsenal in March 2007 to Mozambique's dismal record in international football. According to Renamo, Mozambique doesn't win football matches because of "the politicization of sport".

Magalhes claimed that the Frelimo government only represents the south of the country - but behind him there sat Prime Minister Luisa Diogo, Defence Minister Filipe Nyussi, and Planning and Development Minister Aiuba Cuereneia, all from central and northern provinces.

Magalhaes dismissed the fact that plenty of Frelimo leaders come from the centre and north as mere window dressing. He claimed that northerners in the government "have no power" (Diogo could be seen laughing out loud at this).

Much of Magalhaes' rambling speech consisted of claims that Frelimo was going to steal the general elections scheduled for 28 October. He claimed that STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat), the electoral branch of the civil service, was one and the same thing as Frelimo.

STAE, he said, was deliberately excluding "thousands and thousands" of potential voters in the current voter registration - though the figures available show that over 80 per cent of the estimated electorate has already been registered.

He claimed that the preliminary allocation of parliamentary seats deliberately took seats away from Sofala, Zambezia and Nampula provinces "where Frelimo always loses". As a matter of hard fact, Frelimo won in Nampula, the largest constituency, in the 2004 elections with 27 seats to 23 for Renamo. The seats for each province are in proportion to the registered electorate, and so will be adjusted when the current voter registration ends.

Magalhaes alleged that Frelimo had always stolen elections - even in its first victory, in the 1994 elections (described by the then UN Special Representative in Mozambique, Aldo Ajello, as "the best elections ever held in Africa"). Frelimo depended on stealing votes, he claimed, and was "afraid of losing elections".

For two hours, Frelimo deputies sat listening as Magalhes insulted them. Renamo was not prepared to extend the same courtesy to Manuel Tome. As soon as Magalhaes had finished, the Renamo deputies trooped out of the chamber.

"The champions of lies have left", exclaimed Tome. "The champions of manipulation, the champions of primitive tribalism, the champions of intrigue have fled from the chamber because they are afraid of the truth".

Five opposition deputies, however, remained in their places and listened to Tome and then to Mulembue. They were Maria Moreno, Ismail Mussa, Joao Colaco, Lutero Simango and Manecas Daniel. Moreno is the former head of the Renamo parliamentary group who was summarily sacked in March. She, Mussa and Colaco all resigned from Renamo in June.

Simango and Daniel were not members of Renamo, but led two of the minor parties allied to Renamo in the Electoral Union coalition. All five are known sympathizers of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the new opposition party headed by the mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango (Lutero's younger brother).

Tome declared that Renamo had never been able to use the opportunity provided by its parliamentary presence. That was because it was not a real political party at all, and still suffered from the marks of its birth as a creature, first of the Rhodesian, and later of the South African intelligence services.

"Apartheid had no intention of turning Renamo into an organisation which could take power", said Tome. "Its purpose was purely destructive".

He warned that if, one day, the clause in the country's constitution stating that political parties must be internally democratic were to be taken seriously, then Renamo could find itself in deep trouble. There was no democracy inside Renamo, he accused - the party "just does what its chief (Afonso Dhlakama) orders".

Tome declined to make a point by point rebuttal of Magalhaes's many claims. But he noted that one of his complaints was that Frelimo leaders prefer to be treated abroad rather than use the Mozambican health service.

"Health care in Mozambique has improved greatly - but still faces enormous difficulties", he said. "So there can be no objection to the fact that two weeks ago Viana Magalhaes sent his mother to South Africa for medical treatment".