Mozambique Elections: Maputo returns to normal without mobile internet and students on the streets

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique Elections: Maputo returns to normal without mobile internet and students on the streets

8:11 CAT | 25 Oct 2024

Photo: Lusa

Twenty-four hours after violent clashes that left a trail of destruction on several streets in the Mozambican capital, Maputo has returned to normal, without mobile internet, but with small groups marching peacefully under the watchful eye of the Mozambican police.

On Joaquim Chissano Avenue, the epicentre of the clashes between the Mozambican police and supporters of presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who is contesting the results of the October 9 election, a group of children are already playing football on the asphalt that still bears traces of the clashes.

The clouds of smoke that “painted” the late afternoon on the outskirts of Maputo on Thursday have already disappeared, but the atmosphere is still tense, especially in the interior of the neighbourhoods, with young people sitting down but paying attention to the movements of the vehicles that pass by.

There are stones and traces of burnt tires on almost every avenue, a portrait of the violence that marked the nigh of Thursday, the day on which the Mozambican National Elections Commission (CNE) announced the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), in the election for President of the Republic with 70.67% of the votes.

“We are surprised by this result because we know who we voted for and we know who won. That is why we are back on the streets,” student Agapito António, 24, a supporter of presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, told Lusa.

Agapito António is part of a group of a few dozen students from Eduardo Mondlane University, the oldest higher education institution, who decided to return to the streets today to contest the election results, despite fearing the police forces, who are strategically distributed throughout the city, with some armored vehicles, especially on the outskirts.

“There are indeed people who ended up injured as a result of the clashes [on Thursday], but this is not a reason for us not to march because we know that there will be more oppression in five years if we accept this electoral violence,” said Ismael Pinto, another student.

Although without mobile internet, which was interrupted since early afternoon by the three mobile phone operators without an official explanation, the young students marched for just over a kilometre, holding up slogans repudiating the election results announced on Thursday and singing hymns in support of Venâncio Mondlane.

The students marched along some of Maputo’s streets, escorted by a small group of police officers, to the Praça da Organização da Mulher Moçambicana (OMM) square, just a few metres from the place where Elvino Dias, Mondlane’s lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, election representative of the Podemos party, which supports Mondlane, were killed a week ago, prompting the presidential candidate, who had already called for a strike, to call people to take to the streets.

“This is a civil right [to march], we are not here to vandalise anything. We are students and this is our position”, Fernando Bernardo, another student, told Lusa.

Mondlane, supported by the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos, an extra-parliamentary party), came in second place, with 20.32%, totalling 1,412,517 votes.

In third place in the presidential election was Ossufo Momade, president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the largest opposition party to date, with 5.81%, followed by Lutero Simango, president of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), with 3.21%.

The announcement of the results by the CNE took place on the first of two days of general strike and demonstrations across the country called by Mondlane against this year’s electoral process, which has been marked by clashes between protesters and the police on the main avenues of the Mozambican capital.

More than 300 people have been arrested across the country and, in Nampula, at least one person lost their life, according to data released by the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM).

Source: Lusa