Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo, in power) was announced today as the winning party in the municipal elections in Maputo, the country’s capital, where the candidate of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, opposition) had already claimed victory.
“According to what we have just presented, the head of the list of the Frelimo party was elected Maor of Maputo with 58.78% [of the votes]”, declared this afternoon Ana Tchemane, president of the Maputo Provincial Electoral Commission, when announcing the data from the capital city’s intermediate count, with 100% of the notices processed.
Ana Tchemane added that 635,287 voters were registered for Wednesday’s vote in Maputo and there was an abstention rate of 35%.
According to the intermediate tabulation notice presented today, the Frelimo list in the city of Maputo, led by Rasaque Manhique, collected 235,406 votes (58.78%), Renamo’s 134,511 votes (33.59%) and the Democratic Movement from Mozambique 24,365 votes (6.8%).
Before presenting the notice, Ana Tchemane criticized the “speculation” in recent days on the part of “some political parties” about the non-disclosure of results and lamented the “misinformation” generated on social media, aimed at “discrediting” the process of intermediate clearance.
Renamo’s list leader for the city of Maputo, Venâncio Mondlane, proclaimed on Thursday, with 53% of the votes, the victory in the city’s municipality, led by Frelimo, using the parallel count carried out by the party using published notices for each voting table, bringing thousands of supporters to the streets.
“These are the local elections that mark a democratic transition, which involves, first, the beginning of a political transition,” he told the media.
Venâncio Mondlane, 49 years old, is a forestry engineer and deputy in parliament, being classified by his supporters as VM7 – the CR7 of Mozambican politics, in an allusion to Cristiano Ronaldo. The Renamo candidate has been using his official account on the social network Facebook to denounce the alleged attempted fraud in the capital, which is no longer accessible today.
Frelimo, the party in power in Mozambique, was announced in the last few hours by the provincial and district election commissions as the winner of the local elections in all seven municipalities of Cabo Delgado (conquering one municipality from Renamo), in Quelimane, Zambézia province, and in Nampula (both until now led by Renamo) and Matola, the most populous in the country.
The main opposition party in Mozambique has been denouncing alleged fraud in local authorities whose intermediate results were announced, all giving victory to Frelimo, accusing the police of being instrumentalized by the party in power.
“We hold Mr. Bernardino Rafael [commander of the Mozambican police] and the party in power responsible for all consequences that arise from the fury of Mozambicans who protest this lynching and murder of democracy,” said Renamo president Ossufo Momade at a press conference on Thursday.
The sixth local elections in Mozambique took place in 65 municipalities across the country on Wednesday.
Just over 4.8 million voters were able to vote in these elections, with the spokesperson for the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), Regina Matsinhe, assuring Lusa that it was an “orderly and peaceful” vote, although pointing out ” incidences throughout the day”.
In the 2018 municipal elections, Frelimo won in 44 of the 53 municipalities and the opposition in only nine, Renamo in eight and MDM in one.
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