Our correspondents in Alto Molócuè, in Zambézia, say that the doors of the local MDM office remain shut, and the MDM has not yet participated in any part of the election campaign. In the streets, no MDM posters can be seen, no marches and no meetings.

In conversation, some members of the MDM say they are waiting for instructions to begin their election campaign, and promise to go into action as soon as the conditions have been created.

The head of the MDM list for this year’s municipal elections is Gil da Cruz. He also ran in the 2013 elections, but in the 2018 elections he was replaced by André Txetxema who ran as head of the list and became the MDM’s sole member in the Municipal Assembly.

During the meetings of the Municipal Assembly, it was André Txetxema who denied Frelimo a majority in the approval of the documents debated in the Assembly – until  he suffered an assault which almost cost him his life. Txexema was brutally attacked by unknown assailants shortly before the third attempt to approve the municipal budget. Had the budget been rejected, that would have provoked new elections and the dissolution of the Municipal Council.