The election night was marked by violence in the centre and north of the country

Even the Catholic Church has been denied election observation credentials in Tete, where there is a concerted effort to prevent independent electoral observation

Source: 2019 General Elections – Mozambique Political Process Bulletin Campaign ends peacefully across the country…

One might have expected the CNE, STAE and the Foreign Minister to respond to the brutal murder by allowing independent observation to go ahead. Instead it appears they will say that they have 20,000 observers saying the election was free and fair, without ever mentioning that the independent observers were excluded.

Five people were injured and a protocol vehicle of the Gondola administrator, Moguen Candieiro, was reduced to ashes as a result of an attack by gunmen in Amatongas, Gondola district, Manica

Questions will now be raised about similar unsolved murders. The Franco-Mozambican constitutional lawyer, Gilles Cistac, was gunned down in central Maputo in March 2015 in a very similar drive-by shooting

An election observation leader and civil society activist in Gaza, Anastacio Matavel, was assassinated this morning as he left an election observer training session

Checking and recording becomes even more important, as an error in the manual for election administrators could encourage fraud

Frelimo took over the Peace Day celebrations, and opposition parties were virtually invisible

“Applications from Frelimo-linked organisations were put in one pile and processed quickly; those from independent organisations such as CIP were put in another pile and pushed to one side”