Police chief calls for an end to violent demonstrations led by those who “neither voted nor have voter cards” – Mozambique Elections

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Police chief calls for an end to violent demonstrations led by those who “neither voted nor have voter cards” – Mozambique Elections

5:44 CAT | 31 Oct 2024

Photo: Notícias

The general commander of the Mozambican police, Bernardino Rafael, said today that the majority of those who join the demonstrations called by Venâncio Mondlane are “infiltrators” who do not have voter cards and did not vote, denouncing the use of children in the protests.

“Young people who neither voted nor have voter cards are being used. We can call for demonstrations, but opportunists participate, that is the problem, you cannot separate a peaceful demonstration from a violent one and the opportunists are the ones who fill the demonstrations,” Bernardino Rafael declared.

In a press conference in Maputo to review a meeting with the president of the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), Albano Forquilha, Bernardino Rafael denounced the use of minors in demonstrations that he considered violent.

“This is the most serious problem when it comes to demonstrations. We feel that children are being used, and I don’t believe that Podemos [the party] uses those children to light tires and carry bottles containing fuel to blow up cars. Children are innocent,” he argued.

Rafael thinks that the name of the party which supports Venâncio Mondlane’s candidacy is being used to call for demonstrations.

“Podemos is the one calling for violent demonstrations, without wanting to accuse. What we need as the police is for them to help us, for us to unite so that there are no violent demonstrations. We want them to help us so that if they want a demonstration that it is truly peaceful, they call us and we will accompany them,” the PRM commander said, adding that the police “are open” to dialogue.

“We ask that Podemos as a party notify us of the route if they want this and that we are heard when we say, ‘This is not going to work, this is going to work’,” he explained.
Rafael also said that the seven-day demonstrations called for are a “threat to the life of the country”.

“It would be better to ensure that people work, because the parties have to guarantee work and not paralyse work, transport, markets, which make life a little difficult for Mozambicans,” he argued.

The PRM commander also asked the Podemos leader to use “legal mechanisms” to complain about any irregularities arising from the electoral process, advocating the end of the “fear” with which Mozambicans live.

“Help us so that Mozambicans work, do not live in fear, help us so that we do not receive threats every day, separate yourselves from the message of violence,” Rafael concluded.

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has called for a week-long general strike in Mozambique starting today, demonstrations at the district headquarters of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and marches to Maputo on November 7.

On the 24th, Mozambique’s CNE announced the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for President of the Republic on October 9, with 70.67% of the votes.

Venâncio Mondlane, supported by Podemos (an extra-parliamentary party), came in second place, with 20.32%, but said he did not recognize these results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.

Frelimo also strengthened its parliamentary majority, increasing from 184 to 195 deputies (out of 250), and elected all 10 provincial governors in the country.

In addition to Mondlane, the president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, currently the largest opposition party), Ossufo Momade, another of the four presidential candidates, said he did not recognize the results and called for the vote to be annulled, and presidential candidate Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), also rejected the results, considering them to have been “forged in the secretariat”, and promised “political and legal action” to restore the “popular will”.

The demonstrations called by Mondlane on the 21st, 24th and 25th degenerated into clashes with the police, resulting in at least 10 deaths, dozens injured and 500 arrests, according to the Centre for Public Integrity, a Mozambican non-governmental organization that monitors electoral processes.

Source: Lusa