3 November 2009
Maputo — Former guerrilla fighters of Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo, have threatened to regroup in their old bases in the northern province of Nampula, unless last Wednesday's general elections are annulled.
Renamo suffered a crushing defeat in the elections. The ruling Frelimo party secured a majority of votes in all 11 provinces. President Armando Guebuza won re-election with about three quarters of all votes cast, while Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama only managed 15 per cent.
Dhlakama left Maputo for Nampula on Thursday, and his immediate declaration, speaking to reporters at Nampula airport, was that "Mozambique will burn".
Now men claiming to be former Renamo fighters have gathered at the Renamo provincial office in Nampula city, with an ultimatum. According to a report in Tuesday's issue of the independent newsheet "Mediafax", they gave the electoral bodies 72 hours to annul the elections - if that did not happen, they would return to their old bases in the bush to launch what they called "a rebellion against the Frelimo government".
They also demanded the dissolution of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service, which they described as "an instrument of Frelimo".
There were about 300 of them outside the office, and they claimed that these bases are in the regions of Muecate, Namaita, Lalaua, Murrupula, Mogovolas and Mecuburi.
They claimed that this was their own decision, and said they were not interested in whether or not the Renamo leadership agrees with it. Some even accused Dhlakama of being in league with Frelimo.
The Renamo Nampula spokesperson, Arnaldo Chalaua, said that this was a "provincial decision", but might be extended throughout the country, since Renamo militants are revolted by "electoral frauds". Renamo has not yet given any detailed explanation of the frauds it is referring to: the former guerrillas merely claimed that many people had been unable to vote because their names were not on the voters' roll.
Journalists have reported instances of dishonest polling station staff deliberately invalidating votes cast for opposition candidates, and of falsified results sheets. But this is nowhere near the scale of malpractice that would be required to undermine Frelimo's enormous victory.
Faced with this threat, the police too have decided to go to the former Renamo bases. The spokesperson for the Nampula provincial police command, Antonio Oliveira Maneque, told reporters that the command has almost finished selecting the policemen who will go. The idea is not to pick a fight, but to monitor the situation and see what the former guerrillas are doing.
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