International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola. Photo: Phill Magakoe/Gallo Images
International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola on Tuesday expressed concern about the post-election violence in Mozambique and denied that South Africa erred by congratulating the Frelimo party on its victory pending the confirmation of the results.
Lamola said he wished to echo the call for calm made by outgoing president Filipe Nyusi and president elect Daniel Chapo after at least 30 people died in post-election unrest.
“We will continue to call for calm. Whatever protests must happen within the ambit of the law, without destruction of property,” he told a media briefing.
Chapo has claimed victory with more than 70% of the vote, but runner-up Venâncio Mondlane of the Podemos party has claimed the polls were rigged and that his lawyer and chief aide were murdered while planning to challenge the outcome.
Mondlane, who is credited with 20.3% of the vote, subsequently fled to Johannesburg.
South Africa’s Border Management Authority last week intermittently closed the Lembobo border post after infrastructure was destroyed on the Mozambican side and officials tried to seek refuge in South Africa.
The department of international relations a week ago issued a travel warning on Mozambique, and on Tuesday Lamola said it was continuing to gauge the situation to advise South Africans accordingly.
He said South Africa was naturally concerned that conflict in any neighbouring state would spill over to its territory.
“There will be spillover to South Africa. Hence we continue to maintain the line of engagement with our Mozambican counterparts, and with the process that SADC [Southern African Development Community] is undertaking.”
The situation in Mozambique will be discussed at the extraordinary summit of the SADC Extraordinary Organ Troika in Harare next week. The summit will be preceded by meetings of ministers and senior officials, which start on Friday.
Lamola said South Africa considered Mozambique’s Constitutional Council the lawful final arbiter on objections to the outcome of the election and awaited its decision.
“So at the end that will be the body entrusted by Mozambican laws to pronounce on the outcomes of the elections and we will then be able to take it from there. So we call for all parties to allow the court to consider and make a final determination.”
Lamola said it was common practice to congratulate election winners after the release of preliminary results.
“We know when congratulations are issued. It is not something unique or unusual that South Africa has done with the outcome of the Mozambican elections. Immediately after the preliminary results … that is the norm.
“So we have not gone out of the way to protect our friends from Frelimo, as is being insinuated. We have just stuck to the process. We can’t not do what is the norm because we will be seen to protect our friends,” he said.
Frelimo has governed Mozambique since independence in 1975 and its ties with the ANC stretch back decades, when the latter was a liberation movement fighting apartheid.
Civil society groups have accused the ruling party of registering nearly one million fake voters and European Union election observers have reported that there were irregularities during the counting process.
The country is still dealing with the economic and political fallout of the Secret Debt scandal that triggered a sovereign default in 2016. South Africa last year extradited former finance minister Manuel Chang to the United States to stand trial for his role in the corruption scandal.