Mozambique Elections: PGR lawsuit aims to intimidate – Podemos

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Mozambique Elections: PGR lawsuit aims to intimidate – Podemos

6:20 CAT | 20 Nov 2024

File photo: DW

The president of the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos) today characterised the Public Prosecutor’s Office lawsuit against the party and presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane as “intimidation”, promising that he would respond to “defend” himself.

“It is indeed intimidation, these are lawsuits to protect the Mozambique Liberation Front [Frelimo, the ruling party], and not to follow what the Constitution of the Republic actually says. These are lawsuits that aim to intimidate […] the values of justice,” Albino Forquilha told Lusa.

In a civil lawsuit against presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and Podemos, the party that supports him, the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office (PGR) is demanding compensation of €480,000 for the damage caused by the demonstrations in Maputo in recent weeks.

“Despite warnings and summons’ issued by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the co-defendants [Venâncio Mondlane and Albino Forquilha, president of Podemos] continued to call for and appeal to the mass participation of citizens in the aforementioned protest movements, inciting them to rage and to halt all activities in the country,” reads an internal information document rom the Attorney General’s Office (PGR),as Lusa reported earlier this week.

READ: Mozambique: Prosecutors seek €480,000 from Mondlane in protest damages

Mozambique: PGR files civil lawsuit against Venâncio Mondlane and Podemos – AIM report

The PGR also points out that “even while observing the social disorder and the destruction of public and private property, they continued to instigate protest movements and announced more severe acts against the Mozambican state”, demanding in this civil case, in Maputo, that the co-defendants Venâncio Mondlane and the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos) pay compensation of 32,377,276.46 meticais (€480,000 at current exchange rates).

Albino Forquilha told Lusa that this lawsuit means that the institution is “an instrument of intimidation for Frelimo”, pointing out that it “is entertaining people with effects” and accusing the PGR of ignoring “the causes” of the strikes and demonstrations.

“We will respond, we will react, we will defend ourselves,” he pledged, accusing the PGR of defending “those who stole votes”.

“We have not seen it [PGR] react to the deaths that occur every day, so many shootings of defenceless citizens and it is not reacting, as if it were saying that complaining about injustice is a crime in the Constitution of the Republic,” Forquilha added, arguing that the calls for demonstrations made by him and presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, aim to “protest against the lack of justice in the electoral process”.

“The PGR verified that in the process before the vote there were people who were collecting voter cards, a non-transferable document, and it knew for what purpose, but it did not act,” Forquilha concluded.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi said on Tuesday that there have been more than 200 “violent” post-election demonstrations in the “last few days”, which have left 807 people injured and 19 dead, and he called for adolescents and children to stop being “used” in this protest.

“I appeal for the youngest, I repeat, the youngest, adolescents and children, to no longer be used for disputes that should be resolved in the institutions, at the appropriate time,” President Nyusi said in a message to the nation lasting around 45 minutes, on the subject of “situation of the country in the post-election period”.

Venâncio Mondlane disputes the awarding of victory to Daniel Chapo, a candidate supported by Frelimo, with 70.67% of the votes, according to the results announced on 24 October by the National Electoral Commission.

Source: Lusa