Mozambique’s ruling party and its presidential candidate, Armando Guebuza, have secured a landslide victory in polls to choose a successor to veteran leader Joaquim Chissano amid opposition outrage and demands for new elections.
Results released on Tuesday night by the provincial elections commission show that Guebuza — picked by the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) to replace Chissano, who is stepping down after 18 years in power — won 223 538 votes in the province of Nampula, the biggest constituency.
Opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama bagged 196 743 votes and was also in second place, behind Guebuza, in most of the country’s 11 provinces, thereby giving Frelimo’s candidate an unassailable lead.
In parliamentary elections, Frelimo bagged 208 804 votes in Nampula and the Mozambique National Resistance-led (Renamo) coalition gained 172 430 votes.
Guebuza and Frelimo have also won the most votes in seven other provinces: southern Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane, the central provinces of Manica and Tete and northern Niassa and Cabo Delgado.
Nampula is one of the six provinces where Frelimo had lost to the former rebel Renamo in the 1994 and 1999 elections.
Dhlakama and his coalition have so far won most of the votes in the central province of Zambezia. Results from his home province of Sofala are expected on Wednesday or Thursday.
Fraud and ‘plot against democracy’
Mozambicans voted on December 1 and 2 to choose a successor to Chissano, whose 18-year rule was marked by the end of a lengthy and brutal civil war that claimed up to a million lives.
Renamo and 20 smaller parties on Tuesday demanded fresh elections, saying the polls — marred by an abysmal turnout and long delays in vote counting — were riddled with fraud and a ”plot against democracy”.
Dhlakama, who claimed that Chissano had snatched victory from him in the 1994 and 1999 elections through fraud, on Tuesday ruled out a return to war but warned of ”serious disturbances”.
”The Mozambican people want a tranquil transition but looking at the way things are, I do not know where the country is going,” he said at a news conference attended by members from the 20 other political parties.
”We do not want war but the Mozambicans whose votes were stolen may rise up in protest against those wanting to govern by force.”
Manuel Tome, who heads Frelimo’s election office, on Wednesday said ”the results reflected the people’s will to see the continuation of the work Frelimo has done to rebuild the country devastated by the war of destabilisation”.
”Some people say that Frelimo has done little in 30 years and ignore the fact that we suffered a war … but anyway we have done what some countries in Europe, for instance, did in centuries.”
Renamo election office spokesperson Eduardo Namburete said, however, ”our position remains the same … these elections were rigged and we are preparing all the proof to be submitted to the Constitutional Council”.
In a joint declaration, the opposition said ”for the sake of peace, security, political, economic and social stability, the opposition parties declare that the elections … were neither fair nor transparent”.
It claimed that the high rate of absenteeism ”pre-empt the constitutional provision that power rests with the people”.
Frelimo’s Tome dismissed the claim, saying ”the law does not determine how many people must vote so that elections can be valid … these claims can only reflect their ignorance”. — Sapa-AFP