Politician Venâncio Mondlane has 'severed' relations with the President of the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (PODEMOS), Albino Forquilha, after successive attempts to put the "dots on the ii".

Mondlane says he has done everything to ensure a peaceful climate with Forquilha, but that the latter's actions have led to friction between them.

The former candidate supported by PODEMOS in the 2024 general elections, revealed Forquilha's main attitudes that led to his ouster.

According to Mondlane, who was speaking in an interview with Miramar, in October 2024, about a week after the general elections, Forquilha rushed to announce that he was ready to take over as opposition leader.

At the beginning of the demonstrations, "with the pain of the deaths of Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe", and repudiating the electoral fraud, Forquilha remained silent in the face of the people's causes, and did not criticize the lack of clarification about the murders of his colleagues and people by the police.

"All he did was kiss and hug Bernardino Rafael at a press conference, going against the guidelines of the demonstrations."

Another "traitorous" attitude adopted by Forquilha, in Mondlane's view, was to announce at a press conference that PODEMOS was going to take office in the Assembly of the Republic.

In all situations, Mondlane said there had been appeals for Forquilha not to opt for such attitudes, but the announcement of the takeover "was the last straw".

"Then we reacted publicly and accused him of betrayal," he said, noting, however, that there had been attempts to create a healthy coexistence. "But he practically tore up the [Manhiça] agreement".

"We definitely can't continue to have a cordial relationship with the leader of PODEMOS, because he's shown himself to be a complete traitor," he said. "He betrayed the agreement with us."

For Mondlane, the agreement with the people has also been betrayed, not least because PODEMOS only gained notoriety because of the endorsement it gave itself. Mondlane considers PODEMOS to be a resurrected corpse that thinks it has the illusory autonomy of being able to walk on its own.

"PODEMOS wouldn't have a single deputy in the Assembly of the Republic. He [Forquilha] knows that. Since PODEMOS existed, it has been completely irrelevant. What we did was find a grave, exhume the corpse, wash it and bring it back to life and walk. But after it [the corpse] comes to life, it thinks that life has come by itself. They don't know that someone breathed life into that corpse so that it could walk," he said.

"Albino Forquilha is a traitor, let there be no doubt about that."