Tete — Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo, has blamed the chairperson of the Mozambican parliament, Eduardo Mulembue, for alleged harassment of its members in the western province of Tete.

The Renamo Tete provincial political delegate, Alberto Bulaunde, at a Wednesday press conference, alleged that after Mulembue, who heads the Tete election brigade of the ruling Frelimo Party, passed through the district of Mutarara, 13 Renamo members, all of them chosen by their party to be polling station monitors, were detained. Those who had escaped this police manhunt, he alleged, fled over the border into Malawi.

Bulaunde described Mulembue as a "harbinger of ill fortune" who poisons the ground he treads so that nobody else can grow anything there.

He accused Mulembue of setting up Frelimo "shock groups" everywhere he visited whose task was to prevent other parties from carrying out their election campaigns.

He added that in Chiuta district, the provincial head of the Renamo social services, Vasco Moiana, felt under such threat from Frelimo members and supporters that he fled to Tete city.

Bulaunde told AIM that Renamo always reports such events to the local police, but they never take any action against members of the ruling party. "We informed the police, but the cases are immediately shelved", he said.

Bulaunde announced that Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama will bring his presidential campaign to Tete on Saturday. He will enter Mutarara district from Zambezia province, and will then visit Angonia, Tsangano and Moatize, before addressing a final rally in Tete city.

He also claimed that, despite the harassment, the Renamo campaign has been "positive" in that "all the voters" in the province has been contacted, thus laying the basis for "the certain and unequivocal victory of Renamo".