Maputo — The major of the central Mozambican city of Quelimane, Manuel de Araujo, on Saturday repeatedly dismissed the idea that the main opposition party, Renamo, is in its death throes.
Addressing a rally in Quelimane, where he was presented as the Renamo candidate for governor of Zambezia province, in the provincial elections scheduled for 9 October, Araujo, cited in Monday's issue of the independent newssheet "Mediafax', said that those who forecast the imminent demise of Renamo "do not know Renamo and its supporters'.
"There are people who say that Renamo is finished in Quelimane', he declared. "They say that young people have abandoned Renamo. They say that women have abandoned Renamo'.
After each of these statements, he asked the huge crowd at the rally if it was true, and they replied with deafening shouts of "No!'.
The future of Renamo came into serious question when the party leadership excluded Venancio Mondlane, who had been Renamo candidate for mayor of Maputo in last year's municipal elections, from the Renamo congress held in the central municipality of Alto Molocue in mid-May.
Mondlane had intended to challenge the party leader, Ossufo Momade, for the presidency of Renamo. But with his most serious adversary excluded from the Congress, Momade had little problem in being re-elected for a second five year term as party president.
Mondlane then resigned from Renamo and is now running as an independent in the October election for President of the Republic.
Araujo, who has sometimes been mentioned as a possible future leader of Renamo, did not follow Mondlane out of the party, although he has made his differences with Momade clear. By offering conditional support for the Momade leadership, Araujo has left open the possibility of a future bid for the Renamo presidency.
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Araujo chose to attack by name, not Mondlane himself, but one of his prominent Zambezia supporters, Joel Amaral, who, on the same day, led a march through the streets of Quelimane in support of Mondlane, and of the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD), which is backing him.
Amaral "has gone over to the other side, thinking that Renamo is finished', said Araujo. "But tell him that he still has time to come home'.
He said that Renamo leaders had "made mistakes', and asked the crowd to forgive them, and then "march along the same path together'.
"Our chiefs in Maputo made some mistakes. We cannot hide this', he stressed. "We have to criticize them and they must admit that they made mistakes'.
But he insisted that that the population of Quelimane and of Zambezia will "never' abandon Renamo.
Araujo declared his conviction that he will win in October and become the first Renamo governor of Zambezia.
