Mozambique Elections: Venâncio Mondlane returns to the country on Thursday – Watch

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Mozambique Elections: Venâncio Mondlane returns to the country on Thursday – Watch

8:48 CAT | 06 Jan 2025

File photo: Lusa

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane announced today that he will return to Mozambique on 9 January, more than two months after leaving the country, claiming that “they don’t need to persecute him anymore”.

“They are killing my brothers, they are kidnapping my brothers”, said Venâncio Mondlane in a live broadcast on Sunday evening, on his Facebook account, to present the post-election protest phase that he called “Ponta de Lança”, which both means ‘spearhead’ and striker’.

“If they want to assassinate me, assassinate me. If they want to arrest me, arrest me. I know that when I fall, the popular fury felt in Mozambique will be unparalleled in the history of Africa and Mozambique,” he said.

Venâncio Mondlane, who has been out of the country since October 21, 2024, when the post-election protests began, announced that he will return to Maputo, via Maputo International Airport, at 8:05 a.m. local time (6:05 a.m. in Lisbon) on Thursday, January 9.

“So now I want to tell you what ‘Ponta de Lança’ [new phase of the post-election protests] is: on Thursday, January 9, at 8:05 a.m. sharp, I, Venâncio Mondlane, will be at Mavalane International Airport [Maputo]. I am coming to Mozambique,” he said.

“The role that I had to play outside Mozambique, so that the demonstrations, the protests, could be organized and move forward, was organized, and they have moved forward. I have not left Mozambique out of fear. If they are killing our brothers, if they are destroying our brothers’ shops, if they are burning fuel pumps, if they are destroying warehouses, if they are burning factories, claiming that they are protesters when they are not, to create hatred between brothers, then if it is for me; if it is because of Venâncio, then Venâncio will be at Mavalane International Airport at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday. That is the ‘Ponta de Lança’.”

“Then I, Venâncio, will come by air,” he also said, appealing to the population, including the President of the Republic and the Attorney General of the Republic, to welcome him at Maputo airport.

The Constitutional Council of Mozambique (CC), the country’s final court of appeal in electoral disputes, has set January 15th as the date for the inauguration of the successor of Filipe Nyusi as President of the Republic.

On 23 December of last year, the CC declared ruling party Frelimo’s candidate Daniel Chapo the winner of the election for President of the Republic, with 65.17% of the vote, succeeding Filipe Nyusi in office, as well as confirming Frelimo’s success in maintaining its parliamentary majority in the general elections of 9 October.

This announcement immediately led to new clashes, with the destruction of public and private property, demonstrations, strikes and looting, but in the last week, with no new calls for protests, the situation has returned to normal throughout the country.

Mozambique’s Supreme Court has confirmed that there is no arrest warrant issued for Venâncio Mondlane, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings against him as the mastermind of the demonstrations, alleging losses in the public sector totalling more than €2 million in Maputo city and province alone.

Daniel Chapo, considered by Frelimo a “young candidate”, and the first head of state to be born after independence, will assume the Mozambican presidency in the year in which the country celebrates 50 years of independence, an anniversary marked by the greatest contestation of election results since the country’s first elections, in 1994.

Chapo’s election is contested in the streets, and the announcement by the CC increased the chaos that the country has been experiencing since October, with supporters of Venâncio Mondlane, who claims victory despite, according to the CC, obtaining only 24% of the votes, demanding the “re-establishment of the electoral truth”, with barricades, looting and clashes with the police, who have fired shots in their attempt to quell the movement.

Clashes between the police and the protesters have already caused almost 300 deaths, with more than 500 people suffering gun-shot wounds, according to civil society organizations following events.

Source: Lusa