The Assembly of the Republic (AR), Mozambique’s parliament, on Friday sent its deputies a deeply problematic agenda of the next plenary session sitting next week.
With five items, the agenda indicates that the ruling Frelimo party is prepared to use its two-thirds majority to push through its own political agenda: a reading of the agenda shows that Frelimo wants to change the way the president and deputies are elected.
Furthermore, it also proposes changes to the law electing provincial governments and the deputies of provincial assemblies.
The main opposition Renamo party deputy, Venâncio Mondlane, told Mozambique Insights that he had not seen the text with the proposed changes, but he thought that “these are two critical and structuring laws” and any changes to them requires prior debates by the specialised commissions, and that electoral experts should be heard first.
Mondlane added that there had been neither any prior agreements reached out by the three parties with seats in parliament, namely Frelimo, Renamo and Mozambique’s Democratic Movement (MDM), as is customary.
He thought it strange that the texts with the proposed changes had not been circulated among the deputies. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said, adding that “we need to know the what the scope of this revision is.”
Observers told Mozambique Insights that and profound changes to the laws, like, for example, the president being elected by parliament, would require a prior amendment to the constitution, adding that perhaps the changes being proposed by Frelimo were not that consequential.
The same observers added that the secretive manner in which parliament is acting could mean that there might have been prior consultation and agreement among the leaders of the three parties.
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