Good afternoon. If Ossufo Momade, the leader of opposition party Renamo, were to compare himself to an animal, he might choose an old warhorse, if he wanted to be dignified. A less generous observer, however, might compare him to a leech instead. Since the elections a year ago, in which Momade came a bad third as presidential candidate and his party lost half its seats in parliament, he has contributed nothing useful to public life in Mozambique, and all he wants to do now is secure financial benefits for himself and maintain his aides in their party jobs.
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For the past year, former guerrillas of Renamo have been protesting against Momade and demanding that he step down after leading the party to disaster in last year's elections. Momade has said and done almost nothing to defend himself; indeed he has been more or less invisible (admittedly this may have been partly on health grounds; he had to go abroad for medical treatment before the elections).
Only now has he finally acted. Momade reluctantly allowed Renamo to hold a national council meeting, but in the city of Nampula, his power base. From here Momade promised he would not run for president in the next presidential election in 2029, while pointing out defensively that he was elected president at the last party congress. The implication is that he should be left alone as party leader until then. But that would mean that Renamo will not choose the person to lead it into the next national elections until a few months before those elections. This is unacceptable; a leader needs time to introduce themselves.
