VM7's Invitation to the Council of State: A Banquet of Reconciliation or Christ's Last Supper

Paulo Vilanculo "

The invitation to opposition politician Venâncio Mondlane (VM7) to join Mozambique’s Council of State has raised strong public and political questions. Unlike the other members, his invitation was widely publicized, raising doubts about whether it was a legitimate gesture of national reconciliation or a symbolic maneuver to demobilize his influence as a potential winner of the controversial 2024 elections. How can the government invite a man to advise the President if it does not even recognize the legitimacy of his position before the masses? What is at stake behind the scenes in this “institutional rapprochement”? What does this invitation really mean? A pact of silence? Or an institutional trap to demobilize the growing wave of popular support that is beginning to escape the control of the usual centers of power?

The recent invitation to politician Venâncio Mondlane, better known as VM7, to participate in the Council of State is causing a silent earthquake in the Mozambican political arena. Unlike the other members of the body, whose presence is a result of constitutional rules and formal protocols, VM7's invitation was given unusual media coverage, presented as a trophy of political tolerance on the part of the Executive. The invitation to VM7 took on public dimensions, circulating openly in the national media, as if announcing an unprecedented event or even an attempt at symbolic domestication. In a political scenario increasingly marked by symbolism and ambiguous signals, the invitation addressed to candidate Venâncio Mondlane to participate in the Council of State raises more questions than certainties.

VM7, seen by many as the true winner of the last presidential elections, was invited to an institutional banquet that, for the most attentive, seems more like a political staging than a gesture of genuine democratic recognition. However, historically, the inclusion of VM7 in this context may have more strategic than democratic value: neutralizing the opponent through symbolic integration in a space that has no real decision-making power. A classic gesture of institutional co-optation where the prestige of the invited figure is absorbed by the system, while his agenda for change is sterilized. In fact, it appears that what is at stake is not just the presence of one man, but the future of contradiction in Mozambique, the fine line between political inclusion and the staging of pluralism.

Civil society and the formal opposition question whether VM7 is being genuinely included or merely silenced due to his apparent proximity to power. The State's gesture, although apparently republican and democratic, does not dispel the suspicion that it is a theater staged to legitimize power. Could it be that there is a crisis of legitimacy that the government is trying to circumvent with maneuvers of symbolic inclusion? VM7's presence on the Council is an attempt to cool internal tensions and calm external financiers", perhaps the invitation is the result of intense external pressure, especially from international partners who demand minimal signs of democratic openness from Mozambique.

The Council of State in Mozambique is composed of former presidents, institutional figures and members appointed by the President of the Republic and the Assembly of the Republic. The Council of State’s function is to advise the Head of State on matters of national interest. It is true that the presence of the opposition leader in this restricted circle of presidential advisors, on the one hand, is interpreted as a necessary step towards pacifying the post-electoral political environment; on the other, it can be seen as the dramatization of a “last supper” where the guest, symbolically positioned as the Christ of popular hope, is lured to a space where some Judases are installed, betrayed not with kisses of peace, but with daggers hidden under the robe of power.

In biblical tradition, the Last Supper precedes Judas' betrayal and the crucifixion of an innocent man. There are fears that VM7's presence in the Council of State is the prelude to his political emptiness in an attempt to symbolically bury the mass movement he represents. Will VM7 accept the invitation, refuse it or become an accomplice? If he accepts, in the streets, squares and social networks, will the people debate whether VM7 will be the voice of truth in the Council or just another figurehead in a body devoid of real impact? If he refuses, will he be accused of being intransigent and anti-republican?

On social media and in intellectual circles, the episode is already being read as Christ’s “last supper” at a dinner where the guest of honor is surrounded by a system that has historically betrayed its own democratic commitments. The banquet has been launched and it will be the Mozambican people who, once again, will observe from the sidelines of the banquet, whether to accept or judge, but hoping that at least a few crumbs of political dignity will remain. History will tell whether VM7 will emerge from it as a symbol of national reconciliation or as yet another martyr of Mozambican political hypocrisy.

2025/12/3