by Bayano Valy – SANF 05 no 08
Following bitter disputes over the result of elections in Mozambique, the incoming president has already called on the opposition to work with him in improving the lives of Mozambicans.
Judging from statements emerging from the opposition camp, the calls seem to have been heeded, thus strengthening the hand of Armando Guebuza in confronting the tasks ahead. He maintains that, “I’m going to fulfil all my electoral promises, but we all now need to work.”
Guebuza won 63.74 percent of the votes cast in Mozambique’s general elections in December, against 31.74 percent for his closest rival, the Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, thus earning the right to succeed Joaquim Chissano as president.
The Constitutional Council (CC), the highest appeal body in the country, quashed an appeal by Renamo to have the poll annulled, on the grounds that although there were irregularities, they were not on such a scale as to affect the outcome of the poll. The results have been validated, paving the way for the swearing-in ceremony this week.
Frelimo will have 160 seats in the 250-seat National Assembly against Renamo’s 90. This will be fundamental for the passing of bills and should six Renamo deputies defect, Frelimo would have an absolute majority.
The parliamentary elections in December returned more women than in 1999, raising the representation of women to 33 percent from 31 percent.
Frelimo has 66 women elected to parliament of a total of 160 deputies. This is 41.2 percent. The number of women on the government side of the house in 1999 was 55.
During the internal election process for party representatives, Frelimo where possible adopted a “zebra” system, alternating men and women on the party lists.
The swearing in of Guebuza as president marks another step in the long walk that started in 1964 when in the company of five other youths he jumped the border into the then Rhodesia, on his way to Zambia and eventually Tanzania to join the liberation struggle. Although the first attempt failed, he eventually managed to join up with Frelimo combatants.
In a biography of the new president, Dr Renato Matusse traces the life of Armando Emilio Guebuza from birth to head of state. The book is titled Guebuza: A paixão pela terra (Guebuza: A passion for the land).
In a Preface to the book, Chissano says that Guebuza distinguished himself “as one of the important pillars of Mozambique’s peace process, as the government’s chief negotiator in the peace dialogue, undertaken over slightly more than two years in Rome, Italy.”
He discharged his duties to the point of reaching an agreement with Renamo that culminated with the Rome Peace Accord in 1992.
His negotiating skills were recognised by the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of the United Republic of Tanzania, who appointed him to chair the Committee on the Root Causes of the Conflict in Burundi.
The book also describes Guebuza’s trajectory as leader of the Frelimo parliamentary bench in the Assembly of the Republic, Mozambique’s parliament, and his subsequent election to party secretary-general in December 2001 when Chissano announced he was stepping down.
Guebuza joined Frelimo in 1963, when he was chairperson of the Mozambique Secondary School Students Association (NESAM), and he was involved in the top leadership of the war against colonialism that brought Mozambique’s independence from Portugal.
He was at one time the private secretary to Frelimo’s first president, Eduardo Mondlane, and later political commissar of Frelimo.
Following the Lusaka Accord signed with the Portuguese authorities in 1974, Guebuza played a prominent role in the transitional government preparing for independence on 25 June 1975. He was appointed Minister for State Administration charged with organising the nascent bureaucratic machinery, creating independent Mozambique’s first police force.
The first president of Mozambique, the late Samora Machel, appointed him as Minister of the Interior, where his knowledge amassed in creating the police came into play. He was instrumental in the creation of the Dynamising Groups (grassroots groups closely linked to Frelimo).
He also played a role in shaping the country’s direction in state and public security, adding to his ministerial post — that of political commissar for the police and the armed forces. (SARDC)
