Good afternoon. Time is running out for a political solution to Mozambique’s current crisis that will avoid an escalation of violence. The expectation of people currently involved in private communications between the government and ruling party Frelimo on one hand, and opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and the Podemos party on the other, is that the Constitutional Council will announce the election results on Monday 23 December, in a week’s time. Constitutionally, that is the end of the road; it will not be possible to challenge or change the election results afterwards.
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Tom Gould
From the Zitamar Live Blog:
The official election results announced by the National Elections Commission in October gave a sweeping victory to Frelimo, but Mondlane and his supporters insist that he won. If the Constitutional Council fails to overturn those results and give victory to Mondlane, the already angry demonstrators can be expected to get even more angry and violent, as we argued last week. The only way to prevent this reaction seems to be to come up with a political deal that gives Mondlane something to show to his supporters, such as the setting up of a government of national unity.
