Maputo — Ossufo Momade, the leader of Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo, on Monday claimed that making the election in 2024 of district assemblies impossible would be "a hard and genuine blow against the democratic state'.
"It's a real blow against national sovereignty', he declared, at a Maputo press conference. "All Mozambicans know that multi-party democracy is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic, and today we are fighting for its consolidation'.
Momade also alleged that failing to hold district elections would also be a failure to respect the agreements reached in 2018 between President Filipe Nyusi, and the late leader of Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama. The purpose of those agreements, he claimed, was "to consolidate decentralization'.
Failure to hold district elections "means disrespecting the memory of our late president Afonso Dhlakama, our hero, with whom Filipe Nyusi had agreements'.
Momade was reacting to the passage last week by the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, of a bill proposed by the majority Frelimo Party which changes the electoral legislation.
The change approved looks minor - it states that the President of the Republic must fix the date of the general (presidential and parliamentary) elections 14 months in advance, rather than the 18 months stipulated in the current law.
But knocking four months off the deadline has considerable implications for anyone who wants to change the constitution. The Constitution states that it requires a 75 per cent majority of the deputies to amend anything in the Constitution in the five years subsequent to the previous amendment.
The presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for 2024 must be held in October. If, for example, 15 October is the chosen date then, under the current law, the President of the Republic must announce that date by 15 April this year. The Frelimo amendment would allow the President to postpone the announcement by four months, to mid-August.
A mid-April announcement would necessarily include elections to district assemblies, as envisaged under the 2018 amendments to the Mozambican constitution.
Frelimo, however, is opposed to district elections in 2024 - but the only legal way to avoid them is to amend the Constitution, and Frelimo does not enjoy the super-majority of 75 per cent required to change the Constitution before the five year period is up.
So, amending the Constitution in mid-April would require the votes of at least 188 of the 250 deputies, and there are only 184 Frelimo deputies. Passing the Frelimo amendment would require at least four opposition deputies to defect.
But with the change in the electoral law, the announcement of the general election date does not have to be made until mid-August. That is more than five years since passage of the 2018 amendments, and so by then the requirement for a super-majority of 75 per cent of the deputies falls away. Instead, the majority required is the usual majority for constitutional amendments, of two thirds of the deputies. In this case, Frelimo would only need 167 votes to carry a constitutional amendment.
Momade claimed that Frelimo wants to change the Constitution, not only to scrap the requirement for district elections, but also to allow Nyusi to stand for a third term of office.
Currently nobody can stand for more than two consecutive terms of office as President of the Republic. But there has been a constant stream of chatter about changing the Constitution to allow a third term for Nyusi. However, neither Nyusi himself, nor the Frelimo leadership, has said anything about a third term, and there are known to be differences within Frelimo on the issue.
Momade made unspecified threats about Renamo action, if the Constitution is indeed amended to remove district elections. "It's still too early to say what Renamo will do', he told the reporters. "When the time comes, you will see. Be prepared'.
The 2018 package of constitutional amendments was passed largely in order to persuade the Renamo militia to lay down their guns. The amendments say nothing about what district assemblies will do, or what powers they will have.
They merely state that there will be a district assembly, elected by universal suffrage, which will approve (or reject) the programme of the district government (known as the District Executive Council). The district administrator is not elected by name, but is simply the head of the list of whichever party wins the Assembly election. (This is, to a large extent, a carbon copy of the provisions for Provincial Assemblies).
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The Constitution says nothing else, postponing all details about the district assemblies to future legislation. It does not even state how many members each Assembly will have, or how these Assemblies will be financed.
Renamo seems to believe that more elections and more assemblies equals more democracy. But they are more likely to equal more confusion.
Citizens already elect, not only the President and the parliament, but also provincial assemblies and municipal assemblies. The demand for district assemblies means that citizens in much of the country will be represented by three local assemblies - municipal, provincial and district - and nobody has yet explained how they differ from each other.
Momade also complained of the shortage of funds for the National Elections Commission (CNE), even though parliament has approved the budget for the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October.
This, Momade said, "shows a lack of political will on the part of the regime', which was unwilling to hold the elections and "to continue with the irreversible process of democratization'.
