via RENAMO takes two positions on the same meeting – The Zimbabwean 9 February 2015
There are now two radically different versions of Saturday’s meeting between Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi and the leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama, with Dhlakama’s official spokesperson, Antonio Muchanga, denying the optimism exuded by Dhlakama himself immediately after the meeting.
Dhlakama had told reporters repeatedly that he was “very satisfied” with the meeting and announced that the 89 Renamo parliamentary deputies, elected in October, will soon take their seats in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic (although he did not set a firm date for this).
Muchanga threw a bucket of cold water over this. In an interview in Monday’s issue of the anti-government newsheet “CanalMoz”, he claimed that the end of the Renamo boycott of parliament would depend on the decision taken by the Political Commission of the ruling Frelimo Party, and its President, Nyusi’s predecessor, Armando Guebuza, towards the demands presented by Dhlakama.
Muchanga said that nothing had been decided about the Renamo deputies taking their seats. Instead Nyusi had taken note of Dhlakama’s demands and promised to consult “the owners of the country” (“os donos do pais”, was the Portuguese term used by Muchanga).
Nothing of the sort can be found in Dhlakama’s own remarks after the meeting. He merely said that both he and Nyusi needed to consult with members of their respective parties before holding a second meeting.
Dhlakama had also said that he and Nyusi “are not the owners of this country”. Muchanga twisted this innocent remark to mean that the country has other, unspecified “owners” – although Nyusi has made it clear repeatedly that the only “owners” he recognises are the Mozambican people, declaring at his inauguration ceremony that “the people are my boss”.
Although Muchanga was not present at the meeting, and did not even accompany Dhlakama to the hotel where it was held, he declared “Filipe Nyusi gave no answer to the questions raised by President Afonso Dhlakama. He limited himself to taking note in order to go and consult the owners of the country, and I don’t know who they are”.
Only if the answer from these “owners” was satisfactory, would the Renamo deputies take their seats.
If there is no such satisfactory answer, Muchanga added, Dhlakama would conclude his tour of the northern provinces and would then declare his own government of “the Autonomous Republic of Central and Northern Mozambique”.
“For me, there is nothing to indicate precisely when the deputies will take office”, said Muchanga. “The situation is the same”.
During the meeting only Nyusi and Dhlakama were in the room. There was not even a secretary taking notes. There is thus no written record of the meeting, allowing either side to say whatever they like about it.
The Assembly is holding an extraordinary sitting on Thursday and Friday, at which it will elect its governing board, the Standing Commission, and its various working commissions. If the Renamo deputies continue their boycott they are liable, under the terms of the Assembly’s standing orders, to lose their seats.
Some prominent jurists, including Frelimo Central Committee member Teodato Hunguana, who is a former judge on the Constitutional Council, have doubted that this clause in the Standing Orders is in accordance with the Constitution. But even if they do not lose their seats, the Renamo deputies will certainly not be paid their handsome parliamentary salaries for as long as they are boycotting the Assembly.
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