"Mozambique: Frelimo congress delegates flood Matola with red and “cohesion” –

Cohesion is the word that instinctively jumps out of the mouths of delegates to the 12th Frelimo congress, who today flooded the school of the ruling party school with red at the start of the party’s main meeting in Matola.

With songs and dances and dressed in red, the main colour of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), about 1,500 congress delegates formed lines more than a kilometre long in the suburbs of Maputo just after sunrise.

There are queues to enter the pavilion where the meeting will take place under the spectre of political confrontation between party wings, according to the reading of several analysts.

But on the spot, delegates smile and express a different and unanimous opinion.

Frelimo “will come out very strong and we are all cohesive to lead this country as we have been leading. This is a moment of joy and of all the best things,” said Amélia Matável, delegate from Nampula province in north of the country and its largest constituency.

For Sábado Chongo, congressman from Zambézia province and deputy in the Assembly of the Republic, “there has never been nor will there be divisions within Frelimo”, and the meeting that started today will be one of greater “unity”.

For Patrício Muwito, Frelimo’s main meeting will be an opportunity for the party to show that its continuation in power is not threatened.

“We have no adversary who threatens us; we only respect democracy,” he declared.

The meeting will be a platform for the identification of strategies to lift the country out of poverty, added Easter Mambala, delegate from Sofala province.

“It will be a moment of celebration and joy, and we are looking for a strategy to win in the 2023 municipal elections and the 2024 general elections,” she said.

Indifferent to the partisan intrigue of adults, Shaira, 11 years old and a Grade 5 student , summarises her presence at the congress in one sentence: “Let’s dance for the president!”

Filipe Nyusi, who leads the party and is head of state, was among the children of the Continuadores de Moçambique organisation, a hothouse of supporters and future leaders.

Frelimo meets from today until Wednesday in its most important meeting, at which the current leader, Filipe Nyusi, is the only candidate announced for the presidency.

During the meeting in Matola, on the outskirts of Maputo, new Frelimo governing bodies will also be elected, including the Central Committee, which is responsible for choosing the Secretary-General, the Political Commission and the Verification Committee.

After the congress, the choice of candidate for the 2024 presidential elections will pass to the new bodies