Rebelo, who is one of the most influential members of the ruling party, was addressing members of the Youth Parliament, during a lecture titled “35 Years of Independence, and the Youth Legacy”.
This is the first time that a senior member of the ruling party makes such statement publicly.
Cited on Thursday’s issue of the independent newspaper “O Pais”, Rebelo claims that members of Frelimo party, of which he is one of the founding members, have been instructed to avoid disclosing other’s and their own mistakes when delivering public lectures or talking to the media, a decision that he describes as “bootlicking”.
“There is a strong opposition to criticism. When I speak of ‘bootlicking’, it is precisely that, trying to please the leaders by avoiding criticising anything. This is the reason why there is an instruction to always present everything positively, while avoiding negative issues”, said Rebelo.
This behaviour, said Rebelo, is noxious for both Frelimo leaders themselves and for the country, because they should be told of weaknesses and mistakes made to help them improve their performance.
To revert this situation Rebelo proposes that “we, as Frelimo members, must do everything for more openness and end the trend of banning discussions on major issues on which hangs the future of the party, and above all the future of the country”.
As for the behaviour of the members of his party, Rebelo said that there are people claiming that Frelimo is the best and never makes mistakes.
However, “there are members who are fully aware of ‘bootlicking’ and looking for change, while there are others who are promoting this practice”, deplored Rebelo.
On another development, Rebelo disagrees with the label “Generation of Change” that is being currently used by Mozambican President, Armando Guebuza to define the current generation.
For Guebuza, the “Generation of Change” is tasked with the fight against poverty.
Rebelo instead, suggests that the current generation should be labelled “Generation of Truth”, meaning integrity and accountability in the management of the public resources, as well as repudiation of corruption.
These are some of the virtues that the “Generation of Truth” should embrace, claims Rebelo.
He also states that the young should be open minded, with critical view, which in his words means to refuse to accept everything as a dogma and unquestionable issues.
This new concept, “Generation of Change”, is causing much controversy across the country and was first questioned by the vice-Chancellor of the Eduardo Mondlane University, Filipe Couto, during the last graduation ceremony held recently in Maputo.
On the occasion, Couto invited the Mozambican President to the Faculty of Philosophy to explain his concept of “Generation of Change”.
As for corruption, Rebelo claims that this is an evil which is gaining alarming proportions.
“What few years ago was seen as corruption is no longer today. That is a sort of behaviour we were told to avoid in the past, but now viewed as normal”.
What yesterday was an exception, today is a common practice”, concluded Rebelo.