By Brian Okoth
Frelimo, the ruling party in Mozambique, wants the 2024 district elections postponed and the country’s constitution revised.
The party has now asked for consensus in parliament to have the proposals adopted.
Frelimo’s leader in parliament, Sergio Pantie, said it was their expectation that the MPs would approve the proposal to review the constitution.
“The proposal (to revise the constitution) has been triggered by our people’s aspirations,” Pantie said on Thursday.
“The requirement that the district elections be held in 2024 should be removed from the text in the constitution,” he added.
Pantie said the country’s three political parties, including the opposition, should sit down and agree to have the polls date changed.
He said the MPs’ decisions should, however, receive the blessings of the electorate.
“We should present to the National Assembly alternative models adjusted to the Mozambican reality,” he said.
The Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) has a strong majority in parliament, with 184 members out of 250.
Viana Magalhaes, the leader of opposition party Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), said they would oppose Frelimo’s proposals to revise the constitution and change election date.
Magalhaes said Frelimo was resorting to “dictatorship, tyranny and lack of common sense” in its proposals. The opposition said five years have not elapsed to warrant revision of the constitution.
“Frelimo deposited in parliament a bill to revise the constitution even before the maturation period of the current constitution. They just want to make holding of district elections unfeasible,” Magalhaes said in parliament.
Though the exact date when the district elections will be held remains unclear, there is a legal provision stipulating that the polls be held in 2024.
The legal provision is in an agreement signed between the Government of Mozambique and Renamo in 2019.
According to the 2019 Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement, the district elections must be held simultaneously with the presidential and legislative elections.
