“There is no work done on your part in relation to dialogue in Mozambique. On the contrary, you’ve always been partial, you’ve always had totally sad positions, you’ve always used adjectives against me,’ said Venâncio Mondlane, in a direct address to Rangel from his official Facebook account.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane today accused Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel of bias and of ‘manipulating’ public opinion when he said that he had been following the post-election process in Mozambique.
‘There is no work done on your part in relation to dialogue in Mozambique. On the contrary, you’ve always been partial, you’ve always had totally sad positions, you’ve always used adjectives against me,’ said Venâncio Mondlane, addressing Rangel directly from his official Facebook account.
The minister is expected in Maputo on Wednesday to represent the Portuguese government at the inauguration of Daniel Chapo as the fifth Mozambican President, according to the election results proclaimed by the Constitutional Council (CC), which Venâncio Mondlane does not recognise.
‘Know very well how you’re going to position yourself in Mozambican,’ Mondlane warned, while welcoming the absence of the Mozambican President or the Portuguese Prime Minister from the ceremony.
‘They sent the third line, which is the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has called me a populist, he has called me all kinds of names, he has made extremely sad pronouncements in public,’ he criticised.
According to Venâncio Mondlane, the only contact with the head of Portuguese diplomacy took place on 12 January, in an ‘occasional, circumstantial’ phone call during a meeting in Maputo with the Portuguese ambassador to Mozambique, António Costa Moura.
For the presidential candidate in the 9 October elections, Paulo Rangel cannot claim that he has been ‘maintaining contacts’ around the post-election process, marked by stoppages and demonstrations contesting the results, in which 300 people have died and more than 600 have been shot, called by Venâncio Mondlane.
‘It’s false. Dr Paulo Rangel, you have had no contact with me. We had occasional contact the day before you came to Mozambique, so you can’t use this as if there was a history of contact with me. Since October 2024, when this began, I have always privileged Portugal in my communications as a valid actor for mediating the post-election crisis in Mozambique. You have never spoken out about this, you have never done anything at all, you have publicly attributed various adjectives to me, including populist,’ he accused.
In a speech dedicated essentially to the position of the head of Portuguese diplomacy, Venâncio Mondlane said that Paulo Rangel ‘cannot deceive the Portuguese, deceive Mozambicans, deceive the international community, trying to demonstrate’ that ‘he has done work’.
‘You have done absolutely no work, you have always been impassive, serene, you have been inactive, you have been in hibernation throughout this period,’ said Venâncio Mondlane.
Mozambique held general elections – presidential, legislative and provincial assembly – on 9 October.
In the presidential elections, the CC, the final court of appeal in electoral disputes, proclaimed Daniel Chapo, the Frelimo-backed candidate, as the winner with 65.17 per cent of the vote.
Chapo’s election as Filipe Nyusi’s successor is, however, being contested on the streets and the CC’s announcement has added to the chaos that the country has been experiencing since October, with pro-Mondlane demonstrators – a candidate who, according to the Constitutional Council, won only 24 per cent of the votes but claims victory – protesting to demand the ‘restoration of electoral truth’, with barricades, looting and clashes with the police.