Mozambique Assembly Opens Way for Multi-Party System

The National Assembly unanimously approved articles to a new constitution Saturday, establishing a multi-party political system and ending the ruling Frelimo party’s 15-year monopoly on power.

The state-run Mozambican news agency AIM reported that legislators voted in favor of five articles establishing political pluralism in the war-ravaged nation, endorsing the political reforms of President Joaquim Chissano aimed at ending a grinding civil war.

“There was no opposition to the move to pluralism,” the agency reported.

Debate over about 200 articles in the new constitution began two weeks ago, and the entire document is not expected to be approved for at least another week. The first secret-ballot elections in the former Portuguese colony are expected to be held during the July or August dry season next year.

The constitutional provisions ending Frelimo’s exclusive right to power, however, are unlikely to have any major effect until Chissano’s government is able to negotiate an end to the war with the right-wing Renamo rebel movement.

Two rounds of direct talks with Renamo already have been held in Rome and a third may take place later this month, but there have been few public indications of substantial progress in ending the protracted conflict.

The new articles specifically prevent Renamo from entering the political fray because they bar any political party from “advocating or resorting to the use of violence to alter the political and social order in the country,” AIM said.

A creation of the former Rhodesian intelligence service and once actively backed by the white government in neighboring South Africa, Renamo has waged a crippling war that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions uprooted and unable to feed themselves without foreign aid.

In a bid to attract further Western support, including financial aid, and address Renamo demands, Chissano has gradually implemented a series of fundamental political reforms.