"A postponement of the 2024 district elections must be based on a national consensus," Mozambican activist Graça Machel argued today, considering that the opposition must find ways to make itself felt in the face of the "dictatorship of the majority" in power.

"You [the opposition] will always be the minority and, as a minority, the dictatorship of the majority will ignore you. You need other ways of making yourselves felt," said Graça Machel, during a debate on the construction of the democratic rule of law in Mozambique, promoted by the ombudsman's office in Maputo.

In Graça Machel's view, the 2024 district elections, the feasibility of which is under analysis, should be debated, but their possible postponement cannot be imposed on Mozambicans because of the qualified parliamentary majority of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), a party of which she is a member and was part of founding.

"I don't know if district elections are really viable, which is why a commission was set up [to assess their relevance]. But you have to ask whether the way this process is being approached is the right one or not. And that's why I say that we have to create movements so that we all have a consensus [...] But that this is not an imposition by one group on society," said the former wife of Mozambique's first President, Samora Machel, who died in 1986 in a plane crash.

The Mozambican activist also noted that the "spaces of consensus" in Mozambique are shrinking, calling on society to gain courage and demand their rights.

"In our Constitution, sovereignty comes from the people, remember? This means that we have to open up consensus more, in a space where there are no political, religious or tribal colors. We need consensus on where we want to go as a society and what steps we can take," said the activist, quoted by Lusa.

The introduction of district elections from 2024 for the administrators of the 154 districts, currently appointed by the central power, is part of the Peace and National Reconciliation Agreement signed in August 2019 between the Frelimo government and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), which maintains an "armed arm" and is in the process of Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR).

A possible postponement of the district elections scheduled for 2024 would require a constitutional revision, which is only possible with the approval of a two-thirds majority in parliament and which can also only be carried out five years after the previous revision law came into force, which was in 2018.