Local polling in Mozambique started slowly on Wednesday as voters queued patiently to cast their ballots in the first municipal elections contested by a former rebel group in the southeast African country.
”They’re not coming in big waves, but there has been a continuous flow of people,” Trade and Industry Minister Carlos Morgado said at a polling station in the capital Maputo. ”We have had one or two small problems but overall all it is okay and calm.”
The Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) party, a rebel movement that waged a 16-year civil war against the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), is participating in local elections for the first time since independence from Portugal in 1975.
A peace deal in 1992 saw Renamo transformed into a political party, but it boycotted 1998 municipal voting, accusing the Frelimo government of fraud.
That resulted in a turnout of just 14,4% and a landslide victory for Frelimo.
This year, more than two million people are registered to vote in 33 municipal districts contested by Frelimo and Renamo, which are the two main contenders along with no fewer than 15 smaller opposition parties.
National television reported that voting was proceeding peacefully in northern parts of the country, where Renamo is expected to win a majority in Mozambique’s second port city, Beira.
Frelimo traditionally enjoys strong support in the south, including the capital Maputo, and Renamo is more popular in the less developed and poorer rural areas.
This year’s municipal elections are taking place mainly in cities and in 10 rural centres, thus excluding the majority of the population of 17-million. The government has decided to gradually create separate rural councils in areas currently ruled by officials appointed by Maputo.
Electoral official Leticia Mondlane said organisers were expecting a last-minute rush at the end of the day.
”If there are people who had been queuing from before 6pm [4pm GMT, when the stations are scheduled to close], we will not shoo them away. We will stay open to give them a chance to vote.”
Mondlane’s polling station is one of the busiest in Maputo, and it is where President Joachim Chissano cast his vote early morning.
Three young women who are voting for the first time said they had queued for two hours.
”We are very happy and very curious about voting for the first time,” one of them said, but declined to say whom she would vote for, adding that even her friends did not know.
Another woman, 50-year-old Rita Cumbula, was confident the new political leaders would create better lives for Mozambicans.
”I voted because I hope and believe there will be change,” she said.
Mozambique is dependent on foreign investment and aid, which makes up 50% of the annual Budget.
It had one of the fastest-growing economies in the world in the late 1990s, but fell victim to disastrous flooding in 2000 and 2001 that left hundreds dead and devastated agriculuture and homes.
The country nevertheless achieved 8% growth in 2002 but now grapples with high Aids rates and unemployment.
The results of the local elections will provide preliminary clues to the outcome of a presidential election next year, which is expected to be a tight race between Frelimo, Renamo and a newly registered opposition formation, the Peace, Democracy and Development Party, initiated by a popular former Renamo leader, Raul Domingos. — Sapa-AFP