The governor of Nampula province, Manuel Rodrigues, has refused to be "nominated" by the Frelimo party to run for the presidency of the city, because he has ambitions for the Presidency of the Republic.

According to media reports, Manuel Rodrigues claimed that his refusal to enter the race for the Nampula municipality was due to his commitment to finish his term as provincial governor.

In an early, ten-minute audience - but after a long wait - with the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, in Maputo on the sidelines of the Maputo International Fair, Manuel Rodrigues would have explained his refusal and would have heard a simple "all right" in response.

"...Manuel Rodrigues was summoned, the President received him for only ten minutes, he explained himself, but nothing was said, except that everything was fine" reads the newspaper, ed. Tuesday (05).

However, new "behind the scenes" information from Evidence indicate that Rodrigues allegedly intends to "rob" the Presidency of the Republic.

"Before he was proposed as a candidate, Manuel Rodrigues was considering the possibility of positioning himself for succession, in other words, he wanted to be President of the Republic. This information escaped him, and to his surprise he was proposed, without prior consultation, to be mayor of Nampula. But he refused, becoming the first member to refuse the will of the chiefs, most of whom have presidential ambitions," he writes.

This Monday, Frelimo presented Manuel Rodrigues' replacement to run in the local elections in the city of Nampula. He is Luís Abdula Giquira, a businessman who is well known in the party of his comrades, let alone among the population, which complicates the calculations to wrest the municipality from the opposition.