Maputo — Provisional election results from 18 of Mozambique's 43 municipalities, issued on Thursday afternoon by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service, confirm that the ruling Frelimo Party has scored a huge victory, winning across the board.

The results from STAE also confirm the accuracy of the unofficial results announced earlier in the day by Radio Mozambique, whose journalists simply copied the results down from the results sheets ("editais") posted on the walls of the polling stations. Where the radio and STAE results differ slightly, this is almost certainly due to mathematical errors in adding up the editais.

The main loser of the elections is Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo. Dhlakama's decision to ditch Renamo's most effective municipal politician, the mayor of Beira, Daviz Simango, has backfired very badly.

Simango refused to be sacked and ran as an independent for a second term of office. On a count from 57 of the 260 Beira polling stations, Simango is winning, with Lourenco Bulha of Frelimo in second place, and the official Renamo candidate, Manuel Pereira, trailing very badly in third position.

The anger of Renamo members in Beira at the expulsion of Simango from Renamo in September seems to have cost Renamo votes in the election for the Beira municipal assembly, and. Frelimo is now likely to enjoy a majority in the assembly. Many one-time Renamo supporters seem to have switched their loyalty to the independent Group for Democracy in Beira (GMB) - which is the only credible explanation for the GMB's strong showing in the Assembly election.

Dhlakama's shabby treatment of Simango may also have damaged Renamo's prospects elsewhere in the country. Renamo has certainly lost control of Angoche and Marromeu, and possibly of Mozambique Island. The result in the final municipality won by Renamo in 2003, the port of Nacala, is still unclear, since results from only 28 of the 99 polling stations have so far been reported.

On the whole, small parties did very badly on Wednesday. The PDD (Party for Peace, Democracy and Development) set up by Raul Domingos, once the number two in Renamo, but expelled from the party in 2000, far from making any breakthrough, picked up derisory numbers of votes. On these results the PDD will not have a single seat in a municipal assembly anywhere in the country.

The Independent Party of Mozambique (PIMO), a thinly disguised Islamic party, picked up one seat in each of the assemblies in Cuamba, Nampula and Angoche in 2003. .This time it is likely to lose all those seats. As for the Labour Party (PT), it struggled even to pick up one per cent of the vote in those municipalities where it stood.

The only small parties and groups that have done reasonably are those with a local base, such as UNAMO (Mozambique National Union) in Milange, on the border with Malawi. They can at least expect to have some representatives in the municipal assemblies.

In Milange, it was the UNAMO leader, Carlos Reis, who came second in the mayoral election, beating Renamo into third place. The result announced by STAE for Milange was:

Bento Chimuaza (Frelimo): 3,516 Carlos Reis (UNAMO): 1,161 Inacio Chidembe (Renamo) 486

For the municipal assembly election in Milange, the results were:

Frelimo: 3,981 UNAMO 661 Renamo 401 PDD: 83

Renamo must have hoped to win the municipality of Mocimboa da Praia in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, since the results here in both 2003 and in a by-election in 2005 were very close. But Frelimo has greatly increased its vote in this town. The mayoral result, as announced by STAE was:

Fernando Neves (Frelimo): 9,295 Singano Assane (Renamo): 5,446

Frelimo had a similar margin of victory in the Mocimboa da Prais municipal assembly election, where the result was:

Frelimo: 8,939 Renamo 4,994

The STAE results, while official, are still provisional, and subject to change. In particular, the thousands of votes declared invalid at the polling stations must all be inspected and "re-qualified" by the National Elections Commission (CNE). This is because polling station staff often tend to be over-zealous in deciding what constitutes an invalid vote, rejecting votes simply because the cross is not quite in the right place.

The CNE will look at all votes declared invalid and will rescue those where it concludes that the voter has indicated a choice.

AIM will publish other results announced by STAE later on Thursday, or on Friday.