26 November 2008
Maputo — The Maputo City Elections Commission on Wednesday confirmed that the candidate for mayor of the city from the ruling Frelimo Party, David Simango, who is currently the Minister of Youth and Sport, won last Wednesday's election with almost 86 per cent of the valid votes cast.
His sole rival, Eduardo Namburete, of the former rebel movement Renamo, picked up just over 14 per cent of the vote.
These results are in line with the provisional count announced at the weekend by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service. In full, the mayoral result is:
David Simango (Frelimo): 244,317 (85.7 per cent) Eduardo Namburete (Renamo): 40,777 (14.3 per cent)
In the election for the Maputo municipal assembly, Frelimo took almost 84 per cent. Renamo trailed with 11 per cent, and the independent citizens' list Juntos Pela Cidade (JPC) took 3.25 per cent. On AIM's calculations, this means that Frelimo will have 56 seats in the 67 member Assembly, Renamo eight and JPC three. Three minor parties all won less than one per cent of the vote, and will not win any seats.
The full result for the assembly elections was as follows:
Frelimo: 241,288 (83.8 per cent) Renamo: 31,948 (11.1 per cent) JPC: 9,413 (3.25 per cent) PDD: 2,183 (0.75 per cent) PIMO: 1,239 (0.3 per cent) UNAMO: 746 (0.26 per cent)
In the mayoral election 6,394 invalid votes and 4,927 blank ballots were cast. The equivalent figures for the assembly election were 5,490 and 6,456. The invalid mayoral votes included a number cast by critical Frelimo supporters, who were disgusted that the party refused to stand the highly respected and successful current mayor, Eneas Comiche, for a second term of office. So a few Comiche supporters expressed their anger by writing Comiche's name across the mayoral ballot paper.
The turnout in the Maputo election was 45 per cent, a considerable improvement on the 22 per cent turnout registered in the last municipal elections in 2003.
One potentially confusing result of the municipal elections is that the winners in both Maputo and Beira are called Simango, and their first names only differ by one letter (David in Maputo, and Daviz in Beira). Already some foreign news agencies have managed to issue clumsy dispatches mixing up the two.
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