Mozambique: President pledges to broaden dialogue in bid to end post-poll crisis - Watch
Mozambique Elections: UN Secretary General calls for calm
2:59 CAT | 18 Nov 2024
Image: Euronews
The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, on Sunday called for restraint on the part of the Mozambican authorities and asked that the “expression of diverse opinions” be allowed.
““In relation to Mozambique, my call is naturally a call for calm, a call for the expression of diverse opinions and diverse positions to be carried out peacefully,” said Guterres, at a press conference in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, when questioned by the a member of the Portuguese press.
The UN Secretary-General, who is in Rio de Janeiro to participate in the summit of leaders of the G20, a group of the 20 largest economies in the world, also expressed his wish that “the authorities also exercise the necessary restraint to ensure that Mozambique’s problems are resolved peacefully”.
Guterres further stressed that “respect for the functioning of institutions” must be preserved.
On Saturday, the electoral platform Decide estimated that, 22 people died, more than half of them in Maputo in three days of protests against the results of the Mozambican general elections held on October 9, in addition to 23 people being shot and 80 arrested.
On Friday, Mozambique experienced the third day of the so-called “third phase” of the fourth stage of strikes and protests to contest the election results called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who denies the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power), with 70.67% of the votes.
According to the CNE, Mondlane came in second place, with 20.32%, but he said he did not recognize the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council, which has no deadline for this purpose and is still analyzing the dispute.
After street protests that paralyzed the country on October 21, 24 and 25, Mondlane once again called on the population to a seven-day general strike, starting on October 31, with nationwide protests and a demonstration concentrated in Maputo on Thursday, November 7, which caused chaos in the capital, with several barricades, burning tires and gunfire and tear gas fired by the police throughout the day to disperse the protests.
Source: Lusa / ONU News
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