Presidential candidate Daniel Chapo, backed by the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), said today that one cannot ‘choose out of emotion’ in Wednesday’s elections, when it is the future of the country ‘that is at stake’.
‘Voting is choosing. And you don’t just choose, there has to be a reason. And you can’t choose out of emotion. Five years [a presidential term] is no joke, it’s the future of our country that’s at stake,’ said Daniel Chapo, during a rally for the general elections on 9 October held today in Moatize, Tete province, in central Mozambique.
Drawing an analogy between Mozambique and the car you have to ‘drive’ for the next five years, Daniel Chapo recalled the positions he held as district administrator and provincial governor, to criticise the lack of governing experience of the other candidates.
‘Number three [in the order of the ballot paper, Venâncio Mondlane] talks a lot. He’s nervous all the time. Alone, he doesn’t need to be provoked. But he’s like number one [Lutero Simango], you’ve never seen him drive,’ he criticised, during the same election campaign, which ends across the country this Sunday.
‘There is no other party that has the experience to lead the people, to solve the people’s concerns, to work with the people, to be able to solve the people’s problems. There is no other party, it’s just Frelimo and its candidate,’ said the current secretary general of the party that has led Mozambique since 1975.
On Friday, in an exclusive interview with Lusa, Daniel Chapo guaranteed that he had never considered running for the presidency, but that he had received this ‘mission’ to ‘serve the people’.
‘No, because in Frelimo you receive missions. I never imagined that I would be a district administrator, but then as a member of Frelimo, I was called to this mission, to lead the district of Nacala-Velha, in Nampula. Then I was also given the mission of running the Palma district in Cabo Delgado, when the gas projects started, and then also governor of Inhambane,’ he began to explain.
A lawyer by profession, Daniel Chapo, 47, was approved in May by the party’s Central Committee as the Frelimo-backed candidate to succeed Filipe Nyusi. He had been governor of Inhambane province since 2016.
‘And this was another mission, to be able to run as Frelimo’s candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. And I received it, just as I received the other missions, so that I could really serve the Mozambican people,’ he said.
Mozambique is holding its seventh presidential elections next Wednesday – in which the current head of state, Filipe Nyusi, who has reached the constitutional limit of two terms, is no longer running – at the same time as the seventh legislative elections and the fourth for provincial assemblies and governors.
The electoral campaign, which kicked off on 24 August, ends on Sunday and Daniel Chapo has already made more than two rounds of the country since he was chosen by Frelimo in May, with three rallies a day.
More than 17 million voters are registered to vote on Wednesday, including 333,839 registered abroad, according to figures from the National Electoral Commission.
Also running for the presidency are Ossufo Momade, supported by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the largest opposition party, Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third largest parliamentary force, and Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos).
Source: Lusa
