Mozambique’s ruling party was declared to have won disputed presidential and parliamentary elections by a landslide on Thursday as opposition supporters held scattered protests in several cities that resulted in at least one death.
Daniel Chapo from the Frelimo party, which has been in power for half a century, took nearly 71 percent of the votes for president on October 9, the National Election Commission (CNE) announced.
Opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who declared himself the winner and claimed irregularities, won just over 20 percent, it said.
The commission said Frelimo also swept the parliamentary vote, taking 195 of 250 seats, up from the 184 it won in the 2019 vote.
Mondlane’s Podemos took 31 seats, pushing out Renamo — with 20 seats — as the main opposition.
Turnout was only 44.5 percent, seven points less than in the last vote in 2019. Opposition parties and even the Catholic Church claimed irregularities in the voting.
– Protests, tear gas –
As the commission was announcing the results, crowds of Mondlane’s supporters gathered in various cities, including the capital Maputo and northern Nampula, some brandishing placards with slogans such as “Tired of being the slaves of thieves”.
Police blocked their path into the centre of Maputo and fired tear gas along a main avenue where protesters had burned tyres and ripped up election posters, AFP reporters said.
Other protesters sought to block the road leading from the capital to the South African border.
Police said that clashes with protesters had left several injured across the country and reported one death in Nampula in the north.
Mondlane, 50, issued a call for protests on Facebook late Wednesday, encouraging a “great national demonstration” against Frelimo’s half-century in power.
“The time has come for the people to take power and say that we now want to change the history of this country,” he said.
Mondlane has drawn a large following from among the youth of the impoverished country of 33 million people, thundering past the former opposition leader, Renamo’s Ossufo Momade, who took just six percent of the presidential vote.
The 47-year-old winner Chapo will officially take charge of the southern African country in January, becoming Mozambique’s first president born after independence from Portugal in 1975 when Frelimo first took power.
A former provincial governor with no experience in national government, he will be the first president not to have fought in the 1975-1992 civil war between Frelimo and Renamo, which claimed around a million lives.
– Assassination –
Tensions in the build-up to the release of official results were exacerbated by the double murder on Saturday of a lawyer and a political ally of Mondlane who were preparing a legal case to contest the vote on his behalf.
Thousands of people rallied outside Maputo on Wednesday to bury the lawyer, Elvino Dias, who was killed in an ambush in a car alongside opposition activist Paulo Guambe.
Mondlane has blamed the killings on the security forces and claimed he could be the next victim. Police said they have launched an investigation into the killings.
Chapo Thursday evening called for calm, saying that “the justice system must be allowed to shed light on these odious crimes.”
Election observers from the EU have raised concerns about the legitimacy of this month’s polls, noting “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level”.
As Mondlane appealed for demonstrations, outgoing president Filipe Nyusi, 65, warned on Wednesday that calls for violent protests could be considered criminal acts.
“Inciting the population to revolt, misinforming the world and creating chaos for political purposes can be considered criminal acts,” said Nyusi, who has served a maximum two-term limit.
Mondlane, a charismatic former radio presenter, was among a group of protesters tear-gassed by police in a demonstration in the capital on Monday.
He has also accused security forces of wounding three people when they opened fire to disperse hundreds of his supporters in Nampula on October 17.
Last year, several people were killed in clashes after Frelimo won disputed municipal elections.
With allegations of electoral manipulation widespread in the Indian Ocean country, the opposition also rejected the 2019 presidential election results which gave Nyusi 73 percent.
Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, regularly hit by devastating cyclones and flooding.
The country had hoped for an economic boost from the discovery in 2010 of vast gas deposits in the north, but jihadist violence in Cabo Delgado province led ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies to suspend their projects.
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