Manifestação da Renamo em Nampula
Maputo, 12 Dec (AIM) – Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, has rejected as fraudulent the claim that the ruling Frelimo Party won the repeat municipal election, held on Sunday in the town of Marromeu in the central province of Sofala.
According to the official result, announced on Monday by Daniel Cusaminho, the Marromeu district director of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), Frelimo won with 8,450 votes (52.1 per cent). Renamo came second, with 6,104 votes (37.7 per cent), while the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) only took 607 votes (3.7 per cent).
But Renamo undertook its own parallel vote count, based on the results sheets (“editais”) from the polling stations. According to Angelina Enoque, a member of the Renamo National Political Commission, speaking at a press conference in Marromeu on Monday, that count showed that Renamo had won with 59 per cent of the vote. Frelimo came second with 32 per cent, and the MDM third with nine per cent.
On the basis of this count, said Enoque, Renamo does not recognize the results announced by STAE.
Cited by the independent television station STV, she pointed to several signs indicating organized fraud in Marromeu. “We note the mysterious appearance of ballot papers, outside of the normal election circuit”, Enoque said. “Worse still, those ballot papers had been marked in advance in favour of the Frelimo Party”.
The police had illegally detained Renamo polling station monitors, she accused, and had used excessive force “opening fire inside and outside the polling stations with the clear intention of intimidating the monitors”.
In Gurue municipality, in Zambezia province, two marches took place on Monday afternoon, in reaction to the election results. One was by Frelimo, celebrating its victory, but it was overshadowed by a demonstration by the New Democracy (ND) party protesting at what it regarded as electoral fraud. Police kept the two marches separate.
ND is the main opposition in Gurue, which is the only municipality in the country where it is a serious contender for office. This is perhaps because the head of its list of candidates, Orlando Janeiro, was mayor of Gurue between 2013 and 2018.
He was elected mayor on the MDM ticket, but subsequently abandoned the MDM and joined ND. Apparently he took much of the MDM base in Gurue with him.
According to STAE, Frelimo won in Gurue with 1,681 votes (58.5 per cent). ND came second with 853 (29.7 per cent), and Renamo only took 86 votes (three per cent).
But the ND claims that these results are fictitious and that, in reality, it won the election.
Speaking at the ND’s Gurue march, the party’s president, Salomao Muchanga, said the elections are being managed “by mafiosi and gangsters”.
Among the various irregularities detected in the Gurue election, he said, were attempts at ballot box stuffing, the wrong voter registers posted in various polling stations, and police harassment and intimidation.
The repeat election in Gurue, he claimed, was just a re-run of the violations that had occurred in the first election, on 11 October,
(AIM)
Pf/ (511)
