Nyusi to tighten grip on Frelimo

MAPUTO: Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi is expected to consolidate his hold on the ruling Frelimo Party at its 11th Congress, due to begin in Matola today.

Nyusi was not well known inside the country or abroad when Frelimo chose him as its presidential candidate at a Central Committee meeting in 2014.

The only government position he had held was that of defence minister, from 2008, and he was not even elected to the Central Committee until 2012.

Seen at the time as a protégé of then-president, Armando Guebuza, Nyusi beat better known figures, such as former prime minister Luisa Diogo, to become the Frelimo candidate in the October 2014 elections, winning with 58% of the vote.

Guebuza confidently expected to remain party president at the time. But Nyusi had no intention of being subordinate to his predecessor.

Since independence, the posts of President of the Republic and president of Frelimo have generally been united.

Guebuza’s opponents on the Central Committee rebelled, and forced his resignation in Nyusi’s favour in March 2015. In the ensuing two and a half years, Nyusi has stamped his authority on the party, and has marginalised Guebuza loyalists.

He has also taken personal control of negotiations to end the low level insurrections by the rebel movement Renamo. Nyusi’s repeated phone conversations with Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama led to a truce declared by Renamo last December and honoured up until today with no serious violations.

Nyusi has established a rapport with Dhlakama, and he even visited the Renamo leader in his bush headquarters in the central district of Gorongosa in August – something that Guebuza never risked.

The price Dhlakama is demanding for a definitive end to hostilities is the inclusion of officers from Renamo’s militia in leading positions in the armed forces and police. This is the most delicate issue Nyusi has to sell to the Congress.

He is certainly willing to cut a deal with Dhlakama, and at ceremonies at the weekend, marking the 53rd anniversary of the launch of Frelimo’s war for independence from Portuguese colonial rule, Nyusi called for “flexibility” and “adaptation” from the armed forces.