Mozambique: Mondlane calls for three-day election protest nationwide – Watch

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Mozambique: Mondlane calls for three-day election protest nationwide – Watch

1:34 CAT | 12 Nov 2024

Screen grab: YouTube

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has called for a new period of national demonstrations in Mozambique, for three days, starting on Wednesday, in all the provincial capitals, challenging the electoral process.

“We will protest at the borders, at the ports and in the provincial capitals. All 11 provincial capitals (…) We will paralyse all activities so that they understand that the people are tired,” Venâncio Mondlane appealed in a live broadcast on his official Facebook account, concerning the “fourth stage” of protests against the announced results of the October 9 general elections.

Mondlane has said that the demonstrations would have “several phases” – to be announced – and which, he said, were also a protest against “kidnappings and hostage-takings” and “the murder of the people”.

“We will protest for three days, then we will take a break,” he said yesterday in the same broadcast, made from what he called “exile”, calling for the population of all districts to gather in each provincial capital, including Maputo, by Friday.

He asked for the protest to be extended to the country’s ports and borders, and to the transport corridors that connect these infrastructures, appealing to truck drivers to join in. “We are not forcing anyone to join the demonstration. We are passing on the demonstration’s values, and whoever wants to can join,” he explained.

Regarding the impact of the national demonstration on 7 November in Maputo, which led to a day of chaos in the Mozambican capital, Mondlane stated that it was never his intention to carry out a coup d’état.

“If we wanted to carry out a coup d’état, we would have done it,” he said, pledging: “We will not give up, we will not retreat. They have already killed many people.”

Mondlane said that the “objective is not to take power by force”, but rather to “pressure the institutions” to restore “electoral justice” and turn “a new page for Mozambique”. This would require “all kinds of sacrifices”, he said, while appealing for there to be no vandalism.

At least five people died, 38 were shot and 164 were arrested in Mozambique on November 7, the last day of the third stage of the demonstrations called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, the Mozambican NGO Plataforma Eleitoral Decide announced yesterday.

Mozambique, and especially Maputo, the capital, has experienced activity stoppages and demonstrations called since October 21 by Venâncio Mondlane, who does not recognize the results of the general elections announced by the National Electoral Commission, which gave victory to Daniel Chapo and the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party).

The demonstrations held in Maputo left a trail of destruction, with deaths, injuries, arrests, infrastructure destroyed and commercial establishments looted, especially on November 7.

According to data presented yesterday by Mozambican Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Plataforma Decide, three of the deaths occurred in the city of Maputo, one in the province of Inhambane, in the south of the country, and another in the province of Tete, in central Mozambique.

Plataforma Decide also counted 38 people shot, with the city of Maputo having the highest number of cases (32), followed by the province of Inhambane with three people shot, Maputo province with one, and the same number in the provinces of Zambézia, in the centre of the country, and Tete.

The NGO also indicates that of the 164 people arrested, 61 cases were recorded in the country’s capital, 51 in Zambézia, 25 in Nampula, in the north of the country, eight in Inhambane, six in Maputo province, four in Sofala, in central Mozambique, one in Gaza, in the south, and the same number in Tete.

It adds that, outside the country, as a result of demonstrations contesting the results of the October 9 general elections, at least seven people were arrested in Angola.