Mozambique: President-elect criticizes vandalism during post-election protests

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Mozambique: President-elect criticizes vandalism during post-election protests

4:02 CAT | 07 Jan 2025

FILE -Daniel Chapo: "These demonstrations caused incalculable damage" [File photo: Marco Longari/AFP]

The president-elect of Mozambique yesterday criticized post-election demonstrations, which have culminated in vandalism and job losses.

Daniel Chapo, the President-elect of Mozambique, has criticised the vandalism taking place in post-electoral demonstrations there.

“These demonstrations caused incalculable damage, thousands of our brothers and sisters lost their jobs and also in the private sector there are people who spent their entire lives building a certain asset which was lost in a single day,” he said.

The announcement by the CC of the election results giving victory to Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo as President of the Republic, and that party’s majority in parliament, led to chaos in the streets, with protesters clashing with the police and looting and vandalism taking place.

Speaking to journalists after visiting a centre for disabled children and adults in Maputo, Daniel Chapo lamented the damage it suffered and said that the reconstruction of public and private infrastructure would get his full his attention after his inauguration on January 15.

“After all, we were destroying our property, so people woke up in the morning after setting off bombs and discovered that they had a car, they had money, but no fuel, that they needed to eat, they had money, but they couldn’t get it because the grocery store or the bank no longer existed in the neighbourhood,” said Chapo in a call for national unity.

Chapo stated that the meetings that have taken place between parties with parliamentary representation aim to create “consensus”, which will then be debated and transformed into laws in the Assembly of the Republic.

Change and reforms

“When I talk about consensus, I’m talking about reforms, because the country is going to celebrate 50 years of independence and 30 years of multi-party democracy. Over this period times have changed – desires change and societies change, so there is a need to update many aspects that involve reforms and we believe these are fundamental to adapting the laws to the current situation,” Chapo said, mentioning, by way of illustration, the electoral law and the decentralization of the state apparatus

Four Mozambican opposition parties expressed their openness, after a new meeting with the current President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, to continuing a dialogue for a social pact that will lead to reforms in the country, in view of the post-electoral tension.

“Throughout this internal dialogue, [the parties] have agreed that they will continue to dialogue with the sole objective, collectively, of making a political commitment to reforms in the country, as there is a need to establish a new social pact to change Mozambique and this necessarily involves reforms,” declared the president of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), Lutero Simango, during the presentation of a joint statement after the meeting of 30 December 2024, which also involved the Podemos and Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) parties.

On 23 December of last year, Mozambique’s Constitutional Council, the country’s final court of appeal in electoral matters, declared ruling party Frelimo’s candidate Daniel Chapo the winner of the election for President of the Republic, with 65.17% of the vote, as well as confirming Frelimo’s success in maintaining its parliamentary majority in the general elections of 9 October.
Chapo’s victory has been contested in the streets by supporters of Venâncio Mondlane, who, according to the CC, obtained only 24% of the vote, but nevertheless continues to claim victory.

Clashes with the police, in which protestors demand the “reinstatement of electoral truth”, have resulted in almost 300 deaths and nearly 600 people being shot.

Source: Deutsche Welle