"Mr. Venâncio Mondlane was excluded because he does not meet the requirements, but all the other candidates who applied will have their candidacies voted on by the congress" that starts on Wednesday, said José Manteigas, Renamo spokesperson, about the nine validated candidates.

The deputy and party candidate for the Maputo local government in last October's elections submitted his candidacy for the leadership of Renamo even after the approval, by the party's national council, of the candidate profile that, among other requirements, demands 15 years of uninterrupted militancy, which is not the case for him.

With the approval of the profile, the candidacy of Venâncio Mondlane - who led dozens of street demonstrations against the electoral results of the local elections - for the party's leadership would be excluded, since he only joined Renamo in 2018, after leaving the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third political force with a seat in parliament.

Venâncio Mondlane, however, filed an injunction with the Constitutional Council (CC) demanding the annulment of this profile, a matter that, according to him, has not yet been resolved.

"The CC did not reject the request (...) The CC found that there were no conditions to make a decision without having the deliberation of the Renamo National Council in writing. But even you, who are journalists, did not have access to this deliberation, because it was not shared with the members (...) this is an open issue. As soon as the party shares the deliberation with its members, we will file an appeal", said Venâncio Mondlane last week, after submitting his candidacy at the Renamo headquarters in Maputo.

Renamo will hold its seventh congress on May 15 and 16 in Alto Molócué, in the province of Zambézia, where the new bodies and president of the party will be chosen, whose mandate expired on January 17.

About 700 congressmen should elect the new leadership of the party, a position for which Ossufo Momade, current president of Renamo, André Magibire, former secretary-general, Anselmo Vitor, head of the training department, Ivone Soares, deputy and former head of the parliamentary bench, and Alfredo Magumisse, member of the political commission, are running.

Elias Dhlakama, brother of the party's historical leader (Afonso Dhlakama), Juliano Picardo, president of the provincial council of Tete, Pedro Murema, member of the provincial council of the city of Maputo, and Hermínio Morais, member of the political commission, also presented their candidacies for the party's leadership.

The current leader of the party has been criticized externally and internally due to alleged inertia in the face of alleged irregularities in the Mozambican local elections last October, and accused of negligence in the face of the situation of the party's guerrillas demobilized under the peace agreement with the Government.

The meeting of the Renamo national council, which preceded the elective congress in April and approved the profile for the candidates for the leadership, was marked by skirmishes between the party's security guards and a group of young supporters of Venâncio Mondlane.

The young people tried to demonstrate at the door of the room where the meeting of the Renamo National Council was taking place, at the Glória Hotel, in the Mozambican capital, when the party's security guards forcibly expelled them and tore up the posters they were holding in support of Venâncio Mondlane's candidacy.

Mozambique will hold general elections on October 9, including presidential elections, in which the current President, Filipe Nyusi, can no longer run because he has reached the constitutional limit of two terms.

After the election of the party's president, Renamo will still have to clarify who will be the candidate it supports for the position of President of the Republic, who is normally the party's leader.

Read Also: Momade reapplies for president of Renamo and welcomes the number of candidates (Portuguese version)