Maputo — Venancio Mondlane, the independent candidate for the Mozambican presidential elections scheduled for 9 October, on Wednesday met in Lisbon with the Portuguese far right party Chega (a name which could be translated into English as "Enough!')
Mondlane was once a senior figure in the main opposition party, Renamo, and was Renamo candidate for mayor of Maputo in last year's municipal elections. But he resigned from Renamo and his presidential bid is backed by the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD), a grouping of six tiny extra-parliamentary parties.
Mondlane's meeting with Chega is shocking since Chega is a notoriously xenophobic and racist group. It directs its hatred particularly against the Roma community in Portugal.
The most alarming aspect of the Portuguese parliamentary elections earlier this year was the rise of Chega, from just one seat in the Lisbon parliament to 12, becoming the third largest party in parliament. This ended the comforting illusion that Portugal was somehow immune to the rise of the far right across Europe.
So toxic is Chega that the mainstream Portuguese right will have nothing to do with it. Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, who heads the right wing Democratic Alliance (AD), the winner in the recent elections, has publicly stated that he will not form any kind of coalition with Chega. He agrees with the left that Chega is a racist organization, and rejected the demand by Chega leader Andre Ventura that Chega should be part of any government formed by the AD.
Chega makes no secret of its belief that countries once ruled by Lisbon should still be part of the Portuguese empire. On 25 April, the 50th anniversary of the overthrow of fascism in Portugal, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the then Prime Minister Antonio Costa, made official apologies to the peoples of the former colonies for the crimes committed by the colonial regime.
The sole dissenting voice was that of Chega, which raged against Rebelo de Sousa, and demanded that the former colonies should pay compensation to Portugal. Chega accused the President of "betraying Portugal and its history',
The Chega deputy president, Diogo Pacheco de Amorim, led the Chega delegation that welcomed Venancio Mondlane. Amorim had vehemently opposed the Portuguese revolution of 1974-75, and sought exile in Spain, then led by another fascist regime, that of Francisco Franco.
In Spain, he was a leader of the Democratic Movement for the Liberation of Portugal (MDLP), a terrorist organization responsible for several bomb attacks against organisations of the left.
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He flitted from one far right grouping to another, including the Movement for Independence and National Reconstruction (MIRN), led by Kaulza de Arriaga, who once commanded the Portuguese army in Mozambique, in its failed attempt to crush the liberation movement, Frelimo.
More recently, he has called for Portugal to withdraw from the United Nations, calling the world body "an agency for divulging cultural Marxism'.
It is not at all clear what Venancio Mondlane thinks he has to gain from relations with Chega. His cosy chat with a fascist ideologue such as Amorim merely destroys his own credibility.
There is no indication that Mondlane will meet with any other Portuguese political party. The ruling AD, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party all have longstanding relations with Frelimo, and when the Frelimo presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, visited Lisbon earlier this year, he met with the general secretaries of all three parties.
