Renamo Sabotages Assembly

27 April 2011

Maputo — Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, on Wednesday successfully sabotaged the debate in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on the annual report from Attorney-General Augusto Paulino, by demanding that Paulino read out the entire document rather than a summary.

Paulino had only read a few pages when he was interrupted by a point of order from the head of the Renamo parliamentary group, Angelina Enoque, who protested that Paulino was not reading the document verbatim.

She claimed this was a violation of the Assembly’s standing orders. But in fact, the standing orders only state that the Attorney-General “presents” an annual report on the state of justice in the country, and does not oblige him to read out the entire document.

This year’s report is 244 pages long. Half of this consists of statistical appendices – the Renamo deputies apparently thought that these should be read out too, for Enoque did not exclude them from her remarks.

Taken by surprise, Assembly chairperson Veronica Macamo failed to make an immediate ruling, but threw the matter open to debate.

Deputies from the ruling Frelimo Party thought that Renamo was simply wasting time. “This is obstruction by Renamo”, declared Edson Macuacua. “Renamo doesn’t want to work and doesn’t want others to work”.

All deputies had plenty of time to read the document prior to the debate, since the report had been deposited in the Assembly the requisite 15 days in advance, he added.

Teodoro Waty, head of the Assembly’s constitutional and legal affairs committee, pointed out that when the government presents laws to the Assembly, it does not read them out verbatim, but gives a summary.

Other deputies noted that summarizing lengthy documents is common practice throughout the world. If Renamo’s logic were to be followed, the government would also have to read out verbatim its annual plans and budget, and the hundreds of pages of its five year programme.

But Renamo would not budge. Previous attorney-generals had read their entire report out, and they wanted Paulino to do the same. “He’s not supposed to give a summary”, snapped Saimone Macuiana. “The whole nation must hear this report”.

Macamo called an interval to allow for consultations, but nothing would shift Renamo, or the smaller opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).

Eventually, Macamo put the issue to the vote – but Renamo deputies objected to that too, and refused to vote for their own position. The 182 Frelimo deputies present voted to allow Paulino to continue summarizing the document, while the 53 Renamo and MDM deputies did not vote at all. Since refusal to vote is equated with absence from the chamber, all 53 should now lose a day’s wages.

Renamo’s antics had taken up almost two hours of the Assembly’s time, thus pushing the entire debate around Paulino’s report into Thursday.

AllAfrica – All the Time