Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane says he will arrive in Maputo tomorrow morning on a Qatar airways fight at 8.05 am from Doha. It is a commonly used link to connect to European and Asian flights. Mondlane fled Mozambique two months ago and it is assumed he has negotiated the end of legal actions and arrest warrants against him.
Mondlane and the leadership of the PODEMOS accuse each other of violating the coalition agreement signed by Mondlane and PODEMOS head Albino Forquila. It was signed on 22 August 2024 and is valid until registration for the municipal elections of 2028. The agreement gives Mondlane substantial power and some money. In a letter published yesterday (Tuesday 7 January) in social media Venâncio Mondlane asks whether or not Albino Forquilha will comply the agreement.
Until now the agreement has never been published, but The CIP Eleições Bulletin publishes it here: http://www.cipeleicoes.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Acordo-2.pdf The accord is contradictory and confusing, because it was written in haste just two days before campaigning started. Venâncio Mondlane initially stood as presidential and parliamentary candidate for the CAD coalition. Suddenly after approving parties and candidates, the National Elections Commission on 18 July said, illegally and retrospectively, that CAD should never have been approved. Mondlane's presidential candidacy was approved, and it was agreed on 22 August, just two days before the campaign, that he would be the presidential candidate for a small party, PODEMOS, of which he was not a member. At the time, both were minor players, but together they became very popular. The electoral fraud was so huge no one knows who won, but the official results made Mondlane and PODEMOS second after Frelimo, giving them money and power.
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So the agreement had to cover a set of possibilities - if Mondlane was elected president or not, and if Podemos came second and was official opposition with about $1mn from government, or not.
Article 7 of the agreement sets out the rights of Podemos and Mondlane. If Mondlane loses the presidential race and PODEMOS elects parliamentary deputies but does not come second, then Mondlane has the right to choose “cadres in his confidence to occupy all the public posts where indication depends on parliamentary representation”. This includes members and staff of the National Elections Commission, the Constitutional Council. and other state bodies where appointment derives from parliamentary representation. Similarly Mondlane would have the right to appoint 50% of PODEMOS party nominated parliamentary workers, as well as party advisors.
Similarly if Mondlane loses the presidency, but if PODEMOS is the second most voted party and thus becomes the official opposition with special rights and state funding (as indeed happened), then PODEMOS and Mondlane would divide the appointments, each naming half. If Podemos received money as the second-most-voted parliamentary party, then 5% goes to Mondlane.
The agreement stresses that, while it is in force, Venâncio Mondlane has “total freedom” to set up a political party, or, by common agreement, to join PODEMOS or to merge PODEMOS with the party that he may create, or they may create a new joint party into which PODEMOS would merge into.
