Mozambique Elections: Crowd invades local Frelimo headquarters and finds hundreds of voter cards – Watch

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Mozambique Elections: Crowd invades local Frelimo headquarters and finds hundreds of voter cards – Watch

2:23 CAT | 05 Dec 2024

Screen grab: CanalMoz

A crowd invaded Frelimo headquarters in Muecate, Nampula province, and found hundreds of voter cards, many in old computer cases, which they then scattered on the street.

The people of Muecate, 60 km from Nampula city, on Wednesday (04-12) invaded and vandalized the Frelimo district committee premises there, where they found, in the office of the first secretary, hundreds of voter cards, Canalmoz reports, confirmed by Ikweli news in Nampula.

The voter cards were stored in ordinary boxes and also inside defunct computer cases. A video on social media shows youngsters throwing one of these cases into the middle of the street, where voter cards already lie scattered.

For more than a month, since the National Electoral Commission declared Frelimo and its presidential candidate Daniel Chapo the winner, with 70% of the votes, of the October 9 general elections, the streets of Mozambican cities have been filled with protests against alleged fraud.

Hence, this case in Muecate – where, according to Ikweli, the headquarters of the Mozambican Women’s Organization, the houses of the first secretary of Frelimo, the party security guard and the district director of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration were also set on fire – has reinforced the many voices claiming electoral irregularities such as ballot box stuffing and falsification of notices (ediatis).

Observador contacted the government of Mozambique about this and other incidents but has not yet received any response.

While the Constitutional Council is the process of validating the results and considering the appeals filed by the opposition, Venâncio Mondlane, who claims to have won at the polls and left the country citing security reasons after two key members of his candidacy were murdered, has called for demonstrations that have shaken the country, and in which more than 76 people have already died in clashes with the police.

First day of new phase of protests begins with deaths and injuries

A new cycle of protests, dubbed the “4×4” by the candidate supported by Podemos (Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique) began this Wednesday.

The first day of the campaign, in which Mondlane has called for cars to park up and block public roads for eight days, was once again marked by tension and violence, especially in Nampula and Pemba.

“It was a terrible day in Nampula – there were deaths, the security forces fired live ammunition, with 16 people seriously injured, one of whom ended up dying in hospital,” Ikweli director Aunício da Silva told Observador. In Pemba, “there were massacres”, adds the journalist, who saw his newspaper’s Nampula offices being targeted by police firing tear gas.

On the social media pages of some activists, such as Quitéria Guirengane, and in some Mozambican media outlets, images of the victims in Pemba were published that were too graphic to be published here.

According to the spokesperson for the General Command of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), Orlando Modumane, five people died in the protest on Wednesday, with some police stations being totally or partially destroyed. Modumane also revealed that 100 people were arrested.

The same number of fatalities is reported by the Electoral Platform Decide, a civil society platform, which reports four deaths in Nampula, for example, and 22 people shot by gunfire, 14 of them in Nampula city.

Quitéria Guirengane explains to Observador, however, that the Decide report is not yet updated with the victims in Pemba and in Sofala, where four people were shot by gunfire and one died.

The day was also marked by four other moments – two on the streets, one ‘presidential’ in nature and a fourth one, ‘municipal’.

The first is the inauguration of a new business in which protesters sell badges in Maputo with the face of Venâncio Mondlane and Podemos symbols. It works as a pass enabling travel around Maputo – a city which this Wednesday once again had burning tires on the streets and garbage containers blocking the passage of cars.

The second was the mass participation of students in the protests, taking to the streets, tearing up exam papers on exam day, or preventing others from writing their exams, as can be seen in several videos shared on social media. In Chibuto (Gaza), secondary school students even surrounded some police officers while shouting: “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”

The third event is yet another statement by President Nyusi. In a conversation with university rectors, he said that the demonstrations had allowed only 80% of revenue to be collected and that the government may not have the money to pay teachers and nurses, for example. “We do not have a budget allocated to us,” MozNews quotes the head of state as saying.

And finally, a moment for local government. The mayor of Marracuene municipality, in Maputo province, joined protesters playing football on the blocked streets.

By Dulce Neto

Source: Observador