Maputo — The opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) has retained its control of the central city of Beira, winning almost 60 per cent of the vote in Wednesday's municipal election.

According to the "intermediate count', announced on Saturday by the Beira district elections commission, the MDM won 112,963 votes (58 per cent of valid votes).

The ruling Frelimo Party came second, with 73,302 votes (37.74 per cent). The main opposition party, Renamo, was humiliated with only 7,045 votes (3.63 per cent). Clearly the Beira electorate has not forgotten the bitter circumstances of the split in Renamo which led to the creation of the MDM in 2009.

These results mean that the MDM mayor of Beira, Albano Carige, has won a second term. His predecessor, MDM founder Daviz Simango, was mayor of the city from 2003 until his death in February 2021. He was initially elected on the Renamo ticket, but after the then Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama threw him out of the party, he was re-elected as an independent in 2008, and then repeatedly (in 2013 and 2018) as the MDM candidate.

In the northern city of Nampula, the district elections commission declared that Frelimo had won, with 82,258 votes (51.77 per cent). This "intermediate count' gave Renamo 65,985 votes (42 per cent) and the MDM 6,757 (four per cent). Renamo has vowed to appeal against these results, which it claims are fraudulent.

All the municipal election results announced so far are provisional, and might be altered at further stages of the protracted count, up to and including validation by the Constitutional Council, the country's highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.