By Joseph Hanlon*
None of the seven new members of the Frelimo Political Commission are linked to former President Armando Guebuza, which means President Filipe Nyusi has gained effective control of the party. The new members were elected early this morning at the end of the 11th Frelimo party congress in Matola. Remaining members of the Central Committee were elected at the Congress Sunday and the new Central Committee then elected the 40% of the Political Commission that can be changed at the Congress.
Three of Nyusi’s ministers were elected:
+ Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario (142 votes)
+ Interior Minister Basilio Monteiro (111 votes)
+ Deputy Foreign Minister Nyelete Mondlane (168 votes, the highest)
Three people who held posts under Chissano but not Guebuza were elected:
+ Manuel Tome, former Frelimo Secretary General (161 votes)
+ Aires Ali, Minister of Education under Chissano and briefly Prime Minister under Guebuza but sacked in 2012 (136 votes)
+ Tomas Salomao, former finance minister (128 votes)
The seventh person elected is Ana Rita Sithole (132 votes), an MP and member of the parliamentary permanent commission, who was an early supporter of Nyusi.
President Filipe Nyusi is automatically a member. Ten members were re-elected: Alberto Chipande, Eneas Comiche, Eduardo Mulembwe, Raimundo Pachinuapa, Sergio Pantie, Filipe Paunde, Veronica Macamo, Margarida Talapa, Conceita Sortane, and Alcinda de Abreu. Of the 17 elected members, 7 are women.
Jose Pacheco, Alberto Vaquina, Carvalho Muaria, Esperanca Bias and Lucilia Hama were not re-elected to the Political Commission. Former Secretary Secretary General Eliseu Machava decided not to stand. Cadmiel Muthemba could not stand for re-election because he was not even elected to the Central Committee.
The new central committee also elected Roque Silva as Frelimo Secretary General. He is currently the Deputy Minister for State Administration and before that was Frelimo party secretary in Gaza. The Central Committee also elected Raimundo Diomba as the secretary of the Verification Commission, the Frelimo disciplinary body, replacing Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco who was not returned to the Political Commission. Diomba is currently governor of Maputo province, and previously governed Gaza and Manica. The two are ex officio members of the Political Commission.
Former President Armando Guebuza was named honorary president of Frelimo.
Of the 195 member Central Committee, 119 were elected at provincial Frelimo conferences. The 11 provincial secretaries and the heads of the three social organisations (women, youth and veterans) are automatically members. The remaining 61 were elected at the Congress, on a complex ballot paper involving men and women, re-elected and new (60% must be re-elected and 40% new), youth, and economic sectors. There were 144 candidates.
Three ministers failed in their bids for re-election: Foreign Minister Oldemiro Baloi, Youth and Sport Minister Alberto Nkutumula, and Deputy Youth and Sport Minster Oscar Petersburgo. The outspoken former information minister Teodato Hunguana was also not re-elected. Armando Geubuza and former finance minister Manuel Chang did not stand.
In the provincial conferences, several provincial governors failed in their attempts to gain a seat on the central committee. They included the governors of Nampula, Victor Borges, of Zambezia, Abdul Razak and of Sofala, Helena Taipo. The mayor of Maputo, David Simango, also failed in his bid for re-election. (AIM En 1 Oct, AIM Pt 2 Oct, O Pais & Noticias 2 Oct)
CanalMoz (2 Oct) notes that there are four members of the Chipande family on the central committee and four members of the family of Margarida Talapa, head of the Frelimo parliamentary bench.
The full central committee list is on http://bit.ly/FrelimoCC2017
Frelimo says don’t ostracise the corrupt
Corrupt Frelimo members should not be ostracised and thrown out of the party, but instead should be “resocialized”, explained Frelimo spokesperson Antonio Niquice, speaking to the press at the party Congress Friday. “There are vast criminal laws in the country and more anti-corruption laws have been passed. We believe that convicted persons should be resocialized and not ostracized.” (Lusa 30 Sept)
At the Congress, Frelimo showed that it was following that policy. Invited guests included former justice minister Lino de Almeida (sentenced to two years on corruption charges), former ambassador to Moscow Bernardo Xerinda (charged by the anti-corruption office – Gabinete Central do Combate a Corrupcao – GCCC – in March 2016, but not yet tried), and Mateus Zimba (named as the alleged middleman in the Embraer airplane bribe). There as a delegate was Amelia Sumbana, former ambassador to US, who has also been charged by the GCCC; she stood for the Political Commission but was not elected.
*Club of Mozambique
