Mozambique counts votes in its presidential election as opposition alleges fraud

By Associated Press

MAPUTO: Mozambique began counting votes late Wednesday in a presidential election that is expected to extend the ruling party’s 49 years in power, though the opposition was already alleging fraud and manipulation.

Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, a newcomer to national politics, posed the biggest challenge to the governing party’s candidate, Daniel Chapo.

Mondlane and the two other challengers raised concerns over the election’s fairness, claiming among other things that ballot boxes had been unsealed before voting ended and that some of their delegates were denied accreditation to monitor the voting.

“I trust the electoral process, but not the people deployed to run the election,” Mondlane said.

The governing Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, has routinely denied that it rigs elections following allegations of tampering in previous votes. The leftist former liberation movement has been in power in the southern African country since independence from Portugal in 1975.

Chapo, 47, seeks to succeed President Filipe Nyusi, who has served a maximum two terms.

But the 50-year-old Mondlane has invigorated disaffected youth in a country blessed with rich natural resources, but weighed down by instability, climate shocks and unemployment.

People also voted for the makeup of Parliament and for provincial governors in the country of around 33 million people that still bears the scars of a 15-year civil war that ended in 1992, and more recently has been shaken by an ongoing violent jihadi insurgency in the north.

“All Mozambicans have high hopes from the new president,” said 69-year-old Baptista Antonio, who voted at a school in the capital and Indian Ocean port city of Maputo. “I was born during the colonial era and saw many transformations of the country, from wars to development, and all I can say is it’s a work in progress. There are many challenges ahead.”

Counting began soon after polls closed during the early evening in the one-day election. The full results must be delivered to the Constitutional Council within 15 days of polls closing to be validated and formally declared. Around 17 million people are registered to vote.

The credibility of the election was expected to come under scrutiny. Frelimo was accused of ballot-stuffing and falsifying results in previous votes, including last year’s local elections. Borges Nhamire, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in neighbouring South Africa, said that those elections were manipulated by Frelimo and that more of the same was expected this time.

“In Mozambique, the person who is declared the winner is not always the winner at the polls,” Nhamire said.

Teams of regional and international election observers are in Mozambique, including from the European Union and African Union.