Good afternoon. With the election just over a month away, campaigning ought to be in full swing, but the opposition parties are still suffering from a lack of funds. The traditional campaign materials parties produce, such as T-shirts, caps and flags, have been missing this year, owing to delays in receiving funding from the National Elections Commission, and they also lack funding for transport costs. As a result, the minor parties have been more or less invisible so far. Ruling party Frelimo has no such problem, as it has revenues from other sources like its shareholdings in various companies, and it has flooded the streets with its paraphernalia. The same reason probably explains why not all the parties have been making use of their allocated time on TV to make election broadcasts.
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Most of those parties pose little or no threat to Frelimo. The exception is the Podemos party, since it has endorsed the popular Venâncio Mondlane as presidential candidate. Mondlane has been encountering obstacles of a different kind: the bookings for venues where he is due to hold meetings and rallies have often been cancelled or challenged on this or that excuse. When he arrived in the town of Morrumbala for a rally recently, there was a sudden power cut. Power cuts are a favourite tactic of the government to restrict politically undesirable activity.
