Mozambique’s Frelimo ruling party will hold its Central Committee meeting on 5-6 April, according to party spokesperson, Ludmila Maguni.
Speaking after a party’s Political Commission meeting, Maguni said that the Central Committee meeting has been originally tabled for the second half of March, but it had been rescheduled for April to avoid clashing with Easter celebrations.
It is expected that the meeting will decide on the Frelimo candidate for the 9 October presidential election, as statutory it is the Central Committee that elects a candidate.
Comment
Although no short list has been announced, about a dozen of names have been floated around of potential candidates to become party’s standard bearer ahead of presidential and general elections. Party chairperson and country’s president, Filipe Nyusi is expected to step down in January 2025 when his second and final five-year term comes to an end.
Mozambicans and members of Frelimo are currently holding their breath in anticipation of the outcome of the leadership battle pitting would-be successors for current party chairperson and country’s president, Filipe Nyusi.
Whoever wins the battle is likely to wear the mantle of presumptive president-elect, given how Frelimo has a stronghold over the state, including the electoral bodies – a recent report by Mozambique’s Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) shows that the ruling party has been rigging elections since the dawn of democracy in Mozambique, in 1994.
And as the winner is sworn-in, he or she will inherit a country full of problems owing greatly to Nyusi’s governments’ incompetence and ineptitude. The question now becomes whether the new leader will have the wherewithal to undo the ten years of incompetence and ineptitude. Unfortunately, with one or two exceptions, the people whose names are being floated around do not seem to meet the bar either because their leadership qualities are not known, and where they are known, they leave much to be desired.
And oddly, some of them are part of the current government, which is so far the most incompetent in the history of the country, begging the question what do they have to offer – but after years of Nyusi at the helm both of the country and party, anybody can see themselves as Mozambican president.
This is a problem of Frelimo’s own making. Frelimo has had enough time to establish a leadership school perhaps in the same mould as Eton and the Russel Group of universities in the United Kingdom, or the Phillips Academy Andover and the Ivy League universities. But unlike during the heyday of the revolution, the Frelimo School is no longer producing members who add value to the Frelimo brand.
Little wonder that people throwing their names in the hat without having offered a semblance of a vision for the country nor having told Mozambicans what their development plan is. It is true that it does not help that Frelimo’s own political culture is one that stifles genuine debate amongst members, and thus closing the window to any ideas of the country the candidates might have.
Meanwhile, most of the names being floated around are of people who once in control of the national levers of power, will do nothing but promote their group’s economic and political interests above national interests.
Unfortunately, the Central Committee elective meeting is likely to be so rigged that Frelimo will not be able to elect a figure that can at least undo the ten years of Nyusi, and chart a path of prosperity for the country.
However, perhaps older and wiser heads might prevail and force the current leadership to change direction and propose a visionary leader lest the country plunge into abyss.
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