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MISANET
AIM NEWS CAST, MONDAY 22/10/2007
931007E FRELIMO CHOOSES ELECTION CANDIDATES
Maputo, 22 Oct (AIM) - Although Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party
has called for the postponement of the elections to provincial
assemblies, scheduled for 16 January, it has pressed ahead with
selecting its candidates.
At a Maputo press conference on Monday, the Frelimo Secretary for
Mobilisation and Propaganda, Edson Macuacua, said the election of
804 full candidates and 402 supplementary candidates for the
provincial assemblies ended on Sunday.
The elections had been held in three phases - a primary contest
involving Frelimo zone committees, followed by election of
candidates by district party committees, and the final
composition of lists by the provincial committees. Macuacua said
that about 500,000 Frelimo members had been involved in choosing
the candidates.
35 per cent of the candidates are women, he added, 20 per cent
are youths, and 10 per cent are veterans of the war for
independence from Portuguese colonial rule.
Frelimo, said Macuacua, had been holding internal party elections
ever since its foundation in 1962, and the approach of elections
at any level of the Mozambican state was "an opportunity to
strengthen inner-party democracy".
"The democratic election of Party candidates gives them more
credibility and legitimacy, since the Frelimo candidates were
proposed by Party members at the grass roots, and were selected
by secret ballot", he said.
Frelimo's decision to seek a change in the Constitution in order
to postpone the elections was not in contradiction with selecting
candidates, he argued. Quite apart from the fact that the
elections will be held eventually, Frelimo cannot be sure that
its proposed constitutional amendment will pass.
For changing the constitution requires a majority of 75 per cent
in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. Since
neither Frelimo nor the opposition Renamo-Electoral Union
coalition has such a majority, any constitutional amendment
requires the support of both parliamentary groups.
"Our opposition is unpredictable", said Macuacua. "As long as a
decision has not been taken by the Assembly, Frelimo will
continue to work according to the existing timetable".
In any case, with or without a constitutional amendment, the
current voter registration exercise would continue, and Macuacua
insisted that "all citizens are urged to go and register, to
ensure that they have the right to vote and to be elected".
Asked about Renamo claims, made in the Assembly earlier this
month, that the severe computer problems that have plagued the
voter registration are a Frelimo conspiracy to disenfranchise
Renamo supporters, Macuacua declared that such accusations "are
devoid of any basis", and merely reveal "the depths of Renamo's
despair".
Claims of Frelimo malpractice "are a Renamo strategy to justify
in advance its likely heavy defeat in the next elections. We are
used to this type of groundless accusation which no longer
deceives anybody".
The choice of its candidates showed that Frelimo was ready to
fight an election campaign. Frelimo was proposing a postponement,
not because of any organisational problems of its own, insisted
Macuacua, but because of pressure from the public against holding
elections in mid-January (which is at the height of the rainy
season, when many roads are likely to be impassable).
"Frelimo is better prepared than any other party to fight and win
these elections", he declared.
(AIM)
pf/ (527)
941007E JOAQUIM CHISSANO WINS WORLD'S LARGEST PRIZE
London, 22 Oct (AIM) - Former Mozambican President, Joaquim
Chissano, has won the first Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in
African Leadership.
The announcement was made in London by the chair of the Prize
Committee, former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan,
before an audience of diplomats, journalists and civil society
representatives.
Chissano himself was nowhere to be seen - and he probably does
not yet know that he has won the prize. According to the
executive director of the foundation Chissano set up on leaving
office, former Mozambican Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao,
Chissano is in a remote area of northern Uganda , undertaking the
last task that Annan gave him - as special envoy to solve the
conflict pitting the Ugandan government of President Yoweri
Museveni against the rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)
The prize for excellent leadership in Africa is the largest
individual award in the world. Chissano will be given five
million US dollars, and will receive a further 200,000 dollars
every year for the rest of his life. On top of this 200,000
dollars will be donated annually for a decade to Chissano's
public interest activities and good causes.
The Prize Committee acted independently of the Mo Ibrahim
Foundation. Its other members include Martti Ahtisaari, former UN
Special Representative for Namibia and former President of
Finland ; Aicha Bah Diallo, former Minister of Education in Guinea
and Special Adviser to the Director-General of UNESCO; former
Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who will take over
in December as Managing Director of the World Bank; Mary
Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights; and Salim Ahmed Salim, former
Prime Minister of Tanzania and former Secretary-General of the
Organisation of African Unity.
Annan declared "President Chissano's achievements in bringing
peace, reconciliation, stable democracy and economic progress to
his country greatly impressed the committee. So, too, did his
decision to step down without seeking the third term the
constitution allowed".
Annan also had praise for the Mozambican government's
achievements in the fields of economic growth, poverty reduction
and the fight against HIV/AIDS. However, he stressed that "it is
in his role in leading Mozambique from conflict to peace and
democracy that President Chissano has made his most outstanding
contribution".
He also commended Chissano for his "major contribution outside
his country's borders" which included providing "a powerful voice
for Africa on the international stage".
Annan stated that "the Prize celebrates more than just good
governance. It celebrates leadership. The ability to formulate a
vision and to convince others of that vision; and the skill of
giving courage to society to accept difficult changes in order to
make possible a longer term aspiration for a better, fairer
future."
This is the first in what will be an annual prize set up by the
Mo Ibrahim Foundation. The prize aims to encourage leaders who
"fully dedicate their term in office to surmounting the
development challenges of their countries, improving the
livelihoods and welfare of their people and consolidating the
foundation for sustainable development".
The founder of the prize, Sudanese millionaire Mo Ibrahim, said
that he was "absolutely delighted that Joaquim Chissano has been
selected as the first Laureate. As a man who has reconciled a
divided nation and built the foundations for a stable, democratic
and prosperous future for the country, he is a role-model not
just for Africa , but for the rest of the world".
(AIM)
jhu/pf (579)
951007E VETERANS "ALWAYS IN THE FRONT LINE"
Maputo, 22 Oct (AIM) - Mozambican President Armando Guebuza on
Monday urged veterans of the country's liberation struggle "to
remain on the front line", in the country's battle against
poverty.
Speaking at the opening of a meeting of the National Committee of
the Association of Veterans (ACLLN), Guebuza said that in the
past the veterans had given the best of themselves to implement
the nation's key priorities, during the liberation struggle
itself, during the war of destabilisation, and during the
consolidation of peace.
Today, he said, they were in the forefront of the fight against
poverty.
Guebuza noted that in all the meetings he had held with veterans
during his visits to the provinces, "they restated their
readiness to place themselves once more on the front line to
guarantee the victory of Frelimo and its candidates in the
forthcoming elections".
"They repeated their pledge to continue intensifying Frelimo's
political action to increase still further the popularity, and
the presence throughout the country of the party of liberation",
he added.
In working with the people, Guebuza continued, the veterans' goal
should be "to increase the number of members of our party, to
guarantee that more activities are organised by the Party, and
that there is substantial participation in these activities".
He urged the veterans to mobilise citizens to register as voters,
and later to vote for the Frelimo candidates.
"Frelimo is a Party for major challenges", said Guebuza. "Frelimo
is a winning party, and it always wins because in the front line
are the veterans of the national liberation struggle, the best
sons and daughters of the Mozambican nation".
(AIM)
pf/ (275)
961007E FALSE "MAJERMANES" DETECTED
Maputo, 22 Oct (AIM) - The Mozambican Labour Ministry has
identified 447 people who have falsely claimed that they once
worked in the now defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR) in
order to claim money that the state is committed to paying to
genuine former migrants.
The returnees from the GDR (commonly known as "majermanes")
eventually won a settlement with the government under which the
state was to pay them a total of 48 million US dollars (an
average of about 3,000 dollars each). This money, paid over
several years, covered the return of social security
contributions, the return of money discounted unjustly from their
wages to support the operations of the Labour Ministry delegation
in the GDR, and exchange rate "corrections" covering the deferred
wages sent from the GDR to Mozambique in the late 1980s.
Deputy Labour Minister Soares Nhaca announced the discovery of
the false "majermanes" in Beira on Saturday, at the launching of
a development project in the timber area to be run by the
National Association of Returnees from the GDR (MONARDA), using
money from the sale of shares in the micro-credit bank SOCREMO,
turned over by the government to the returnees.
Nhaca said the government's suspicions were aroused by the late
registration at the Labour Ministry of hundreds of people
claiming to be returned migrants. So the Ministry decided to
screen these applications for payment - and found over 400 who
had never set foot in Germany .
The screening is continuing, and has been extended to a group of
3,000 people for whom cheques have issued, but not yet collected.
The Ministry suspects that some of these people are also
opportunists who never worked in the GDR, or who worked for
shorter periods than they are now claiming
Nhaca admitted that this fraud also involved the connivance of
some Labour Ministry officials in falsifying data. He revealed
that criminal proceedings were being initiated against some of
those involved.
"There is a government effort to improve the living standards of
Mozambicans who once worked in Germany , and to restore their
rights, although many of them have been involved in
falsification", said Nhaca. "Criminal proceedings are under way
against the Ministry staff involved, and in due time we shall
release the list of names of false returnees".
What should be the final instalment of payments to the majermanes
is under way. More than 14,000 people have already been paid.
Nhaca also inaugurated a MONARDA office in Beira . "This example,
of MONARDA organising a place where its members and other
returnees from the GDR can meet and draw up strategies for a
decent future, is living testimony that only thus can we solve
our problems", he said.
(AIM)