/ 1 December 2004

Some ballots sent out in canoes for Mozambique poll

Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano voted on Wednesday in a landmark election which will see him step down after 18 years in power, saying he was proud of his role in cementing peace after helping end a brutal civil war that killed about one million people.

”We managed to consolidate the peace process. Things seem to be very well organised … I feel proud that I can finish my mandate in these circumstances,” the 65-year-old Chissano said after casting his ballot at a school near the presidential residence.

Chissano admitted that there had been some problems in transporting ballot material in certain areas of this impoverished southern African nation, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, only to be wracked by a 16-year civil war which started a year later.

”They had to utilise canoes because we don’t have our own means in this country for transportation. We don’t have helicopters, we don’t have planes. We have still a lot of roads to be constructed.

”In spite of that we are doing our best,” he said.

About eight million people are eligible to vote in the two-day presidential and legislative polls, the third since independence as well as a 1992 peace accord signed in Rome that ended the civil war.

There are about 3 000 polling stations scattered over 11 provinces and the polls are being monitored by about 400 foreign observers, including former United States president Jimmy Carter, and 1 600 domestic monitors.

Voters queued up in polling stations ahead of the opening time of 7am (5am GMT) and some were wistful about Chissano’s departure.

Twenty-three-year-old Sonia Mate said Chissano’s successor ”should continue what Chissano has done in terms of poverty, education, Aids and peace”.

Jamisso Taimo, a former head of the country’s National Elections Commission who was among one of the earliest voters, said Mozambican elections were always special given the country’s bloody history.

”All our elections are historical in the sense that in other countries elections are an exercise in democracy but here it’s an exercise in democracy and reconciliation.”

And Paulo Mabunda (71) who came to vote in a wheelchair added: ”We want to continue to live in peace.”

Chissano became president after the shadowy death of founding president Samora Machel in a 1986 plane crash over apartheid South Africa and unlike some other African leaders, he has not tried to tamper with the Constitution to allow himself a third term.

The governing Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), a former armed group that fought Portuguese colonial rule and became the ruling party after, has picked rich businessman Armando Guebuza as its presidential candidate.

Guebuza (61) is locked in a tight race with the main opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama (51) whose former rebel Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) party was backed by apartheid South Africa and fought Frelimo during the civil war.

Guebuza on Wednesday promised to fight corruption and red tape and speed up foreign investment to accelerate the economic revival of Mozambique, which heavily depends on foreign aid.

He also pledged to fight HIV/Aids — which affects about 1,1-million of the country’s 17-million people.

”If I am elected, my government will accelerate the fight against Aids,” he said.

”People need to have more information about how they can defend themselves from the disease. We also need to make sure that infected people get proper treatment. We also need to look at orphans and widows.”

Although Guebuza is expected to win the presidential race, there is the possibility of a run-off vote with Dhlakama, whose Renamo remains popular in the north and centre despite being blamed for committing some of the worst atrocities during the war.

Dhlakama — who lost to Chissano in the last two elections and claimed that victory had been snatched from him through fraud — has cried foul ahead of the current polls, saying the ruling party was planning widespread rigging.

But he said on the eve of the elections that he would accept defeat if the polls were conducted in a freely and fairly. – Sapa-AFP