Good afternoon. Yesterday was a remarkable day in the Mozambican courts. Rasaque Manhique, the mayor of the city of Maputo and a member of the ruling Frelimo party, was fined by a district court for disobeying a previous court order. He was originally sentenced to four months in prison, but this was converted into a fine, as is usual for minor offences, calculated at MZN500 ($7.80) a day over the period of the sentence, or about MZN60,000 in total. That is over one-quarter of his expected monthly earnings.
Does this punishment mean that judges now feel more confident about standing up to Frelimo politicians? Is it a victory for the rule of law? Not really. In normal circumstances, this case would not have got so far. For example, when in the past a prosecutor tried to bring charges against Carlos Portimão, Frelimo’s candidate for mayor of the city of Moatize in Tete province, the charges were dropped and the prosecutor was dismissed. And it seems that Manhique did not expect it to get so far either: he ignored repeated messages from the court.
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The reason Manhique was convicted by the court this time, according to Zitamar News’s sources, is that the local Frelimo officials did not want to prevent his conviction. They are understood to be unhappy that Manhique has been too upright as mayor. He has not handed out jobs and favours to party figures in the way that mayors are expected to do. As such, Frelimo has decided to teach him a lesson. Rather than a sign of the rule of law, this court sentence is a sign that corruption still rules in local politics.
