Prime Minister urges RENAMO to take its seats

via Prime Minister urges RENAMO to take its seats – The Zimbabwean 3 February 2015

Mozambican Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario on Monday urged the members of the country’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, who were elected in October to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, to take their seats so that their ideas can be heard by the people.

Rosario was speaking at the Assembly immediately after a meeting with the parliamentary chairperson, Veronica Macamo.

Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has ordered the 89 elected Renamo members not to take their seats, on the grounds that the general elections of 15 October were fraudulent. When some of them tried to persuade him to change his mind at a meeting in Nampula on Sunday, he made veiled threats.

“Sitting down with Frelimo would be a betrayal”, he told them, and he would not be responsible for anything that might happen to Renamo members who defied him and did take their seats.

Rosario told reporters that, by taking their seats, the Renamo deputies would be able to express their ideas and create an environment favourable to debating the country’s development. “I encourage them to take their seats and present their differences, and their opinions”, he said.

Any deputy who does not take his seat within 30 days of the opening of parliament will lose it, according to the Assembly’s standing orders. That deadline expires on 12 February.

Rosario said that in his meeting with Macamo, they also discussed mechanisms for better coordination between the government and the Assembly. “I listened to her advice on how we can increasingly coordinate our activity with that of the institution which she heads”, he said.