10 June 2011
Maputo — The former general secretary of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), Ismael Mussa, has launched an attack against the head of the MDM parliamentary group, Lutero Simango, accusing him of being a member of two parties at the same time.
If true, this would violate the 1991 law on political parties, which states that no citizen can belong to more than one political party.
Mussa’s allegation, made in an interview with the independent television station STV, is that Simango remains a member of the National Convention Party (PCN). This, in Mussa’s view, means that Simango’s position as head of the MDM parliamentary group is illegal, and he ought to lose his parliamentary seat.
Simango set up the PCN in 1992, and became its leader. In the 1994 parliamentary election, the PCN stood on its own, but its miserable showing (with just 1.27 per cent of the votes) was not enough to win any seats.
In the 1999 elections, the PCN became one of the parties allied to the former rebel movement Renamo in the “Renamo-Electoral Union” coalition. The coalition pact was renewed for the 2004 elections, and Simango was elected twice to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on the coalition ticket.
Simango’s brother, Davis, was elected as mayor of Beira as a Renamo candidate in 2003 (even though it was no secret that he had been a PCN member). At the time there was talk of merging the PCN into Renamo, but this never happened.
In 2008, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama reneged on a promise to stand Daviz Simango for a second term of office in Beira. Simango stood as an independent and easily defeated the candidates both of Renamo and of the ruling Frelimo Party. The price for this was his expulsion for Renamo, and a few months later he founded the MDM.
The MDM attracted defectors from Renamo, including Ismael Mussa. There was no sign of any dispute within the new party, and Mussa was elected to the Assembly from Maputo city, where he was head of the MDM constituency list. At the time, Mussa made no mention of the PCN or of the Simango brothers’ membership of this party.
It has only become an issue since Mussa’s voluntary resignation as MDM general secretary, and subsequent moves in the party to remove him from the post of deputy head of the MDM parliamentary group.
But does the PCN still exist? In fact, it has shown no signs of life since 2004. There are no PCN meetings, no PCN offices, no PCN publications, no PCN website. It is true that no conference was ever held that formally wound up the PCN, and so it is still on the list of political parties registered with the Ministry of Justice. So are many other defunct minor political parties.
Lawyer Maximo Dias, once the leading jurist in the Renamo-Electoral Union, took a common sense view of the matter when interviewed by STV. He said that Lutero Simango automatically ceased to be a member of the PCN the moment that he joined the MDM.
Simango himself said he had no intention of responding to “provocations” in the media. But he insisted to STV that he belongs to just one party, the MDM.
As for Mussa’s claim that Simango could lose his parliamentary seat, there is nothing in the Mozambican constitution or in the law on the statute of deputies which suggests that he could be disqualified. The law states that a deputy loses his seat if he later joins a party other than the one for which he was elected, but says nothing about membership of other parties prior to election to the Assembly.
On Monday, at a meeting in the northern city of Pemba, the MDM National Council elected Luis Boavida as the party’s new general secretary. Boavida is perhaps the most surprising of the figures who defected from Renamo to the MDM – he was a Renamo parliamentarian for 15 years, and gave every indication that he was an unconditional supporter of Afonso Dhlakama. Yet he switched allegiances in 2009, and in recent months has been mobilizing support for the MDM in the northern provinces of Niassa and Cabo Delgado.
Mussa did not attend the Pemba meeting. He told reporters that he had not been invited. For the time being he remains a member of the MDM.
AllAfrica – All the Time
Taken from:
Mozambique: MDM – Ismael Mussa Accuses Lutero Simango