to bring key areas under state control. All land was nationalized – individuals and institutions could not hold land, but leased it from the state. On July 24, 1975, just a month after independence, all health and education institutions were nationalized. National health and education services were set up, and all private schools and clinics were abolished. The Catholic Church immediately lost the privileged position it had held in these areas. On February 3, 1976, the government nationalized all rented housing. “Landlords? What do we want landlords for in our country for?”, asked Machel at the rally announcing the measure. Private ownership of houses was not banned. Anyone, Mozambican or foreign, could own a house for their own use - but building private property for rent was forbidden. This changed the face of Mozambican cities – black Mozambicans moved from the suburbs into blocks in the centre of the cities, occupying houses and flats, once owned by Portuguese landlords, and many of which had now been abandoned. In February 1977, at its 3rd Congress, Frelimo declared that it was now a Marxist–Leninist party, dedicated to the building of socialism, based on the “worker-peasant alliance”. The Congress re-elected Machel as President of Frelimo, and thus automatically as President of the Republic. Frelimo was reorganized into celulas (“branches”) throughout the county. The party was to be a Leninist vanguard, and state institutions, at whatever level, were to be subordinate to the party. In 1978 elections were held. Since this was a one-party state, there was no organized opposition. Instead, candidates were presented by Frelimo at meetings – and were sometimes rejected when people complained of offences ranging from wife-beating and drunkenness to acting as an informer for the PIDE during the colonial government. Frelimo faced a hostile environment, with the white minority governments of Ian Smith's Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa on Mozambique's borders. In March 1976, Machel's government implemented United Nations sanctions against the Smith government, and closed the borders with Rhodesia. In retaliation, Smith's Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) recruited dissatisfied Mozambicans and former Portuguese settlers and helped set up an anti-Frelimo movement. Initially this “Mozambique National Resistance” operated as an auxiliary branch of the Rhodesian armed forces. Frelimo dismissed them as “armed bandits”. As part of the measures accompanying the new Frelimo government, Machel introduced "reeducation centers" in which petty criminals, political opponents, and alleged anti-social elements such as prostitutes