After all, he knew that nobody wanted him

Roque Silva, a member of Frelimo, apparently has no courtesy when it comes to getting his way! And I, on my humble smartphone, which looks more like a firecracker with a screen, received some videos and memes in which his dictatorial posture was the most charming thing about him.

My reading: This lack of finesse when dealing with people can have to do with many factors, education and self-confidence. Regarding R.S.'s education, I'm going to keep my opinions to myself, because I might make gaffes, but I'm merely saying that academia doesn't seem to have penetrated his brains. Self-confidence, however, seems to have been built up in him in recent years, even more so when he became Secretary General of Frelimo in 2017. It's a precious and powerful position among the comrades, the most prestigious after the party president. Perhaps this inflated his ego even more after being reappointed in 2022.

In fact, his belly, which looks more like an inflated balloon, doesn't allow him to bend over and take care of his own shoes by himself. But R.S has a humiliated family man at his disposal, ready to crouch down and tie his shoes, in a gesture that certainly isn't in his job description - perhaps it fits in with those parts of CVs where it says that the job vacancy is for dynamic and proactive candidates, capable of doing more than is asked of them for the success of the company.

On one occasion, in 2021, in the district of Ile, Zambezia province, Roque Silva implied that in Frelimo the decision of a particular member to run for office depends, in the first instance, on the party.

"Nobody should start preparing to be a candidate now. You can't volunteer to be a candidate. Wait a minute! The others are going to say that you can be a candidate. Nobody should volunteer: I want to! I want to! Who told you that you have to want to? We're the ones who have to want you to want it, not you saying: I want it," he said.

And, as far as the media has shown us, it seems that there was a conspiracy in the Frelimo party to take Roque Silva to the top. But the whole plan came crashing down when heated debates at the party's extraordinary session, between Friday and Sunday night, led to five names being put forward for the internal ballot. Of the five, R.S. seemed to be the favorite due to all the coverage he seemed to have. But the humiliation showed two signs early on.

The first was that the party had already prepared a motion of censure for him to be removed as Secretary General of Frelimo. Somehow he got wind of this plot and took the initiative to resign. He wanted to avoid humiliation! So he also gave up his membership of the Political Commission.

And the second was that in the first round, his opponent Daniel Chapo got 103 votes, 26 more than his 77 votes, and Esperanza Bias got three votes. The others didn't get any votes. Here, in a way, his downfall was already foreseen. In fact, Roque Silva and Daniel Chapo were going to the second round. As if anticipating a resounding humiliation among his comrades, Roque Silva dropped out of the race and let Chapo absorb 94% of the votes, becoming Frelimo's candidate for the presidential elections next October.

For a few seconds I thought that in the heat of the internal debates, Roque Silva had swallowed his own arrogance and emptied the petulance from his belly by sticking a needle in his navel.

It's a case of saying: He knew that nobody wanted him to want himself!

(Text: Emmanuel Mocinha)