Formers Mozambican and the ruling Frelimo party presidents, Joaquim Chissano and Armando Guebuza, have not been formally invited to Friday’s Central Committee decisive meeting, party insiders told Mozambique Insights.
Frelimo is meeting at an extraordinary meeting of its full Central Committee on Friday with the sole objective of choosing its candidate for the presidential elections slated for 9 October 2024.
The decision to call for an extraordinary meeting was taken at the party’s ordinary Central Committee meeting last April.
Barring any surprises, current President Filipe Nyusi will step down in January 2025, at the end of the constitutional second five-year term. As such, Frelimo needs to wrap up the succession process by electing its presidential nominee for the forthcoming October 2024 general and presidential elections.
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If confirmed, this will be one of the most surreal decisions that Nyusi would have taken thus far, not least because both are honorary chairpersons and members of the Central Committee, having been designated as such by Frelimo’s 2022 Congress.
Observers point out that the move not to invite the former presidents is Nyusi’s way of exacting his revenge for their perceived slight during the run-up to last April’s ordinary Central Committee meeting.
The former presidents were part of a group of veterans of the national liberation struggle who pressed Nyusi to open the debate on the process of his succession, which seemed to have caught him by surprise.
Consequently, he must have bid his time to return the favour by ensuring that they are not invited – according to article 86, number 2, of the party’s statutes, “honorary presidents participate in the various events and sessions of the Party’s bodies to which they are invited”.
It is still not clear how the Central Committee members are likely to react, but the move does not augur well for Frelimo, as this will further drive a wedge between the various factions. Nyusi is definitely setting a bad precedent.
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