Good afternoon. It has been almost three weeks since Mozambique’s general election, an election which the ruling party Frelimo very likely won through fraud. Up to now, there has not been any united front among the opposition parties, not surprisingly since one of those parties, Podemos and its presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, gained votes at the expense of the others. Now however, opposition parties seem to have started talking to each other and cooperating. According to the NGO the Centre for Public Integrity, the parties are expected to call for a government of national unity shortly (see below). Whether this idea works or not, it is an important step forward for challenging the election results.
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In the opposite corner, Frelimo shows little sign of being prepared to have a serious talk with the opposition, despite its spokeswoman claiming as much. True, Daniel Chapo, Frelimo’s presidential candidate and the official president-elect, has made noises about dialogue. But Chapo still seems to be deferring to outgoing president Filipe Nyusi, who is taking a rather different tone, as shown by his remarks to diplomats (see below), where he denied any serious problems with the elections, criticised Mondlane for declaring victory early, and condemned the violence against police officers — without, apparently, acknowledging that the police had caused a number of civilian deaths. Nyusi’s defensive position is undermined by the numerous reports from election observer missions, notably the European Union, citing widespread evidence of vote-rigging, and not the isolated incidents that he talked about.
