Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) was announced today as the winner of the local elections in Beira, capital of the province of Sofala which it already led, the only municipality out of 46 counted in which victory was not declared for Frelimo.
According to the intermediate results presented today in Beira by the president of the District Elections Commission, Otávio Paulo, the MDM, the second largest opposition party in the country, was reappointed in the leadership of that municipality with 112,963 votes (58.16%) , followed by the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), with 73,302 votes (37.74%), and the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), with 7,045 votes (3.63%).
According to the notice presented at the end of the afternoon, of the 311,466 voters registered in Beira for the municipal elections on October 11, 206,719 voted, representing an abstention rate of 33.63%.
Of the 65 municipalities that went to vote in these elections, intermediate results have already been released by the provincial and district electoral commissions, in another 45, all of them with a victory for the lists of Frelimo, the party in power in Mozambique – most of which are strongly contested by the opposition parties and civil society observers – including in Maputo, the capital, in Matola, the most populous city in the country, but also in Nampula, the ‘capital’ of Nampula province, and in Quelimane, capital of Zambézia province, these two led until now by Renamo.
In the municipality of Vilanculo, Inhambane province, Frelimo won, with 10,023 votes, but only a difference of 34 votes more than Renamo (9,989 votes), according to the intermediate district tabulation notice.
In the 2018 municipal elections, Frelimo won in 44 of the 53 municipalities – 12 more municipalities were created in these elections – and the opposition in only nine, including Renamo, in eight, and MDM, in Beira.
The Mozambican Bar Association today expressed “deep concern” at the “high level of violence” following Wednesday’s local election, which “reveals discredit in the institutions that manage the electoral process”.
“The levels of violence, in addition to being able to discredit any electoral result, can also generate suspicion regarding the integrity of the electoral act itself, as a whole and the institutions that administer it”, says a statement from that Order, signed by the president, Carlos Martins .
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 instrumentalised by the party in power.
“We hold Mr. Bernardino Rafael [commander of the Mozambican police] and the party in power responsible for all the consequences that arise from the fury of Mozambicans who, in protest of this lynching and murder of democracy,” said the president of Renamo, 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.”
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