Today, in Mafambisse, Dondo district, Sofala province, media professionals are electing the new secretary general of the National Union of Journalists (SNJ), in a process that is already being talked about as lacking transparency.  

Journalists interviewed by Voa are wary of the results that could be achieved in the process, for a number of reasons:

"It doesn't bode well for this conference, because the delegates are mostly journalists from the public sector, those who have their dues up to date, and who might vote for a candidate who has already been a member of a public body," journalist Laurindo Macuácua told Voa.

There are three candidates running for the post of Secretary General, two of whom have already retired, Delfina Mugabe and Faruco Sadique, who in some way played a role in the union, which in the past was heavily influenced by the ruling party. The other candidate is Alexandre Chiúre, who is still active.

"There is an attempt here to put a secretary-general trusted by the ruling party in the SNJ," said Luis Nhachote, of the Global Investigative Journalism Network, "because the body that makes up the union, roughly speaking, are journalists from Rádio Moçambique, Televisão de Moçambique and Jornal Notícias, and I don't think there is anyone in these bodies who is not from Frelimo.

Macuacua criticizes the fact that candidates who are no longer active are running for the post of SNJ. He said that many journalists from the press will not vote because they don't pay dues.

The conference will take place in Mafambisse, about 30 kilometers from the city of Beira, in Sofala, which, for journalist Egídio Plácido, is a strange place to be because it is far from the urban areas where most journalists are concentrated.

"This will mean that many of these journalists won't vote, precisely because they won't be able to attend the conference, which will end up favoring those who have been illegally running the National Union of Journalists for a long time," he said.

In the meantime, Luis Nhachote hopes that a more proactive secretariat will emerge from the conference, "because we can't have an apathetic union in a context full of attacks on press freedom and other aspects, such as the training of journalists."''