By Paul Fauvet
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – Mozambique’s former rebel movement Renamo on Thursday urged the party’s internal bodies to speed up preparations for a session of the Renamo National Council and for an extraordinary congress of the party.
Renamo is in the throes of a leadership battle, as a group of former Renamo guerrillas seek to force the resignation of the party’s president, Ossufo Momade, blamed for the party’s poor showing in the 2024 general elections.
Momade and his allies show no sign of relaxing their grip on the party leadership, although Momade has declared that he is quite willing to leave the top job.
Momade was elected president of Renamo at a Congress in 2019, and re-elected at the subsequent congress in 2024. This gives him a certain democratic legitimacy, that his opponents in the party cannot match.
Renamo generals and other high ranking officers from the now disbanded Renamo army held a meeting in the central city of Chimoio on 27 March, and Momade’s opponents claim that the decisions taken at that meeting have not been implemented.
The dissidents are in charge of a Renamo National Management Commission. Its spokesperson, Joao Machava, protested at a Thursday press conference in Maputo that, 45 days after the meeting of the generals, nothing has been done to implement its recommendations.
These included holding a series of meetings of other Renamo bodies, none of which have happened. “Nobody has lifted a finger to hold any of these meetings”, said Machava.
He warned against what he called “time wasting manoeuvres”, and the failure of Momade’s leadership to take any position on burning issues of the day.
Momade has been unavailable, apparently for reasons of health, and Machava called for activation of a clause in the Renamo statutes which, in the event that the party president is ill, allows him to be replaced until a congress can be held.
He claimed that the party leadership has taken no position towards the war in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, the xenophobic attacks against foreigners, including Mozambicans, in South Africa, and the increase in the cost of living, blamed on the rise in the price of fuel.
The National Management Commission called on the relevant bodies of Renamo to take measures to ensure the holding of a session of the National Council which should call an extraordinary congress of the party by the end of September.
But the Management Commission has no means of enforcing its decisions, and it seems unlikely that Momade will be overthrown.
Renamo is no longer the country’s main opposition force. That role has now been taken by the National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (ANAMOLA), the political party set up by former presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane. (PF)
