Mozambican President Armando Guebuza’s ruling party on Friday held a firm lead in parliamentary poll results in the country’s fourth democratic elections, partial figures showed.
Frelimo was cruising ahead of the opposition, which suffered a split earlier this year as the latest returns showed the party was leading by 77%, with 52 percent of polling stations reporting.
The results came as international observers said the elections were peaceful, but raised questions about the exclusion of opposition parties from some races.
European Union observers called Wednesday’s vote ”well-managed” and ”calm,” but in a finding echoed by other observer missions said the rejection of several parties’ lists for legislative and
provincial elections meant ”a restriction of voter choice at a local level.”
”The election campaign was generally more peaceful than in previous elections and reflected constructive messages by the political contestants,” the EU observer report said.
But it added: ”The rejection of several parties’ lists for the legislative and provincial elections, mainly as a result of the complexity of the electoral legal framework and some unclear procedures, had given rise to a restriction of voter choice at a
local level.”
Initial reports from international observers said the elections had gone smoothly, with only isolated polling-day problems.
But observers from the EU, the Commonwealth and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa raised concern over a decision by the national elections commission to exclude parties from the ballot
wherever their candidate registration documents were judged to be incomplete.
The controversial decision kept 14 parties out of some or all of the parliamentary and provincial races, including the party that held second place in early returns, the upstart Democratic Movement
of Mozambique (MDM).
”In a sizeable number of districts Frelimo contested elections unopposed,” said the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa.
”Stakeholders felt that this development undermines political competition … with dire consequences for the deepening of multiparty democracy in Mozambique.”
Mozambique held its first democratic elections in 1994, part of a peace agreement that ended the country’s 16-year civil war. – AFP
