Africa-Press – Mozambique. The president of Mozambique’s main opposition party Renamo, Ossufo Momade, said on Sunday that the party won the local elections and does not recognise the results announced by the electoral bodies, denouncing a “mega fraud” to “keep” Filipe Nyusi and Frelimo in power in Mozambique.
“The mega-fraud, the manipulation of the election results, are aimed at creating an environment of war for Filipe Jacinto Nyusi [President of MOzambique] and the Frelimo party to remain in power illegitimately,” said the president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party) in Maputo this afternoon, at the end of an extraordinary extended meeting of the National Political Commission.
The meeting served to analyse “the course of the voting and tabulation process” of the sixth local elections held on 11 October in 65 municipalities, in which the electoral bodies have announced the victory of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party) in at least 45 and one for the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), with Renamo so far losing all eight municipalities it controlled.
“It’s a veritable annihilation of democracy in Mozambique,” said Ossufo Momade, and the party’s organ, therefore, puts the responsibility on the head of state in the conclusions of this meeting: “To hold the President of the Republic and the Police of the Republic of Mozambique responsible for all the instability and social upheaval as a result of the electoral fraud.”
“The National Political Commission was very pleased to note that the Renamo party won the local elections,” said the party leader, citing the data from the parallel count using the polling station minutes and criticising the National Electoral Commission (CNE) in the face of the “scenario of an authentic denial of free, fair and transparent elections”.
He said that the party had decided “not to accept and repudiate all the election results that are being released”: “Where we won, we want victory. It’s not a particular party that can postpone victory.”
He pointed to the municipalities of Nampula, Quelimane, Vilanculo, Angoche, Nacala, Ilha de Moçambique, Matola, Marracuene and Maputo as examples of Renamo’s victory in these elections, saying that the “minutes pasted on the walls” immediately after the vote count are proof of this.
“But he was instructed by the [Frelimo] Central Committee to change the scenario. And we’re not going to accept it,” he said.
Renamo complains that “in several municipalities, the electoral registers delivered to the political parties were different from those in the polling stations”, which “prevented the candidate delegates from monitoring and controlling the vote”.
Also, “in almost all municipalities, when the results gave the Renamo party a large lead, the police invaded the polling stations, shooting and throwing tear gas to interrupt the ballot in progress”. “And then they took the ballot boxes to an unknown location, unaccompanied by the candidates’ delegates, polling station staff and observers,” he denounced.
He also said that in the municipalities where Renamo won the elections, “the presidents of the polling stations were instructed not to fill in the minutes”.
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