“Frelimo Presidential Candidate Daniel Chapo Claims 70% of Vote Amid Allegations of Rigging”
“Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo Wins Presidential Election with 70.7% Amid Opposition Killings and Rigging Allegations”
The candidate of Mozambique’s ruling party, Daniel Chapo, has won the presidential election by a significant margin, securing 70.7% of the vote, according to the election commission. His victory comes after the killings of two opposition figures by unknown gunmen and amid allegations of election rigging. Chapo’s total comfortably exceeds the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff election.
Venâncio Mondlane, who had captured the imagination of many young voters and who claimed to have won the election, came second out of four candidates with 20.3%.
The electoral process was marred by the killings in the early hours of last Saturday of Elvino Dias, an opposition lawyer who had been preparing a legal challenge to the results, and Paulo Guambe, an official with the Podemos party. Podemos supported Mondlane, who had been forced to contest the election as an independent.
“Accusations of Voter Fraud and Election Irregularities Emerge in Mozambique’s Presidential Election”
Ahead of the October 9 vote, civil society groups accused Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo, of registering nearly 900,000 fake voters from an electorate of 17 million. Local and international election observers claimed that the vote count was manipulated, with Mozambique’s Catholic bishops alleging ballot stuffing. Additionally, EU election observers noted “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results.”
Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries, is still grappling with the repercussions of a 2016 scandal involving $2 billion (£1.5 million) in hidden corrupt loans taken by the government. This revelation prompted the IMF and other international funders to withdraw financial support, plunging the economy into turmoil.
Mondlane, a former radio DJ, had appealed to young voters in Mozambique where the average age is under 18, and on Wednesday in Facebook videos he called for peaceful protests.
He said: “The time has come for the people to take power and say that we now want to change the history of this country. There won’t be enough bullets for everyone, there won’t be teargas for everyone, there won’t be enough armoured vehicles.”
Zenaida Machado, a Human Rights Watch researcher, called on authorities to respect the right to peaceful protest and to investigate reports of violence and arbitrary arrests of demonstrators and journalists covering protests. “Given the conduct of security forces over the past years … I have reasons to be concerned about what the security forces might do to protesters,” she said.