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May 31st, 2017 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi on Monday met with representatives of several political parties, to brief them about the peace process between the State and Renamo, and the withdrawal of military forces from parts of Gorongosa.
President Nyusi had arranged the meeting and briefing for representatives from minor parties, non of whom hold seats in the Mozambican parliament. However, many of the more than thirty parties in the country have seats in local councils. Nyusi affirmed that he is doing everything in his power to guarantee a definitive and lasting peace.
Nyusi noted that the truce declared byAlfonso Dhlakama, the leader of the Renamo party and its armed wing was an important step because people l no longer be dying in the conflict. The truce was reached in late December, after telephone contacts between Nyusi and Dhlakama. Initially only scheduled to last for one week, the truce has been repeatedly renewed, and earlier this month Dhlakama extended it for an indefinite period.
Last week Alfonso Dhlakama complained that the withdrawal of military forces from portions of the central district of Gorongosa was too slow. Dhlakama’s so-called “bush headquarter” – a Renamo paramilitary base plus settlement is located in Gorongosa.
Nyusi told his visitors that the Mozambican Armed Forces (FADM) have been withdrawn from some parts of Gorongosa, but added that winding down a conflict “is not a linear process and takes time”.
Nyusi added: “It is not easy to pull out of a base that has been occupied for many months. … You have to take all the equipment with you”. However, Nyusi had remained in discussions with Dhlakama who had made suggestions about how to make the procedure more flexible. Nyusi said this was also a matter to be discussed within the working group on military matters set up by the government and Renamo.
Nyusi insisted that both this group and the working group on decentralisation are meeting and will reach consensus. The great secret, he added, lies in building trust between the two sides.
The group of representatives from minor parties was headed by Yaqub Sibindy, the leader of the Mozambique Independent Party (PIMO), which is a predominantly Islamic party. Last week Sibindy claimed that he had persuaded a group of 40 minor parties to support Renamo in the next elections.
Analysts would not be surprised since Qatar has long eyed ties with Renamo and Islamists in Mozambique as leverage when Mozambique, in the mid-2010s, provided that it is stable, becomes one of the world’s leading exporters of liquefied natural gas and by extension, a major competitor to Qatar.
Renamo has not commented on this, but if minor parties hope to enter parliament in an alliance with Renamo, they may face a problem, for one, because support for Renamo among voters has been steadily declining since the last elections. Moreover, Renamo did form an alliance with a cohort of minor parties, known as the Renamo-Electoral Union coalition, for the 1999 and 2004 elections, but abandoned the coalition in 2009.
26 minor political parties took part in the 2014 parliamentary elections. The best result that any of them achieved was 0.21 per cent. Several received less than 0.1 per cent of the vote. One group, calling itself the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) only stood candidates in Maputo City, where it won just 158 votes – as a percentage of the national vote, this rounded down to 0.00 per cent.
F/AK – nsnbc 30.05.2017
Source Article from https://nsnbc.me/2017/05/30/nyusi-briefed-mozambican-parties-on-peace-process-and-withdrawal-of-armed-forces/
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