Maputo — Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party won Sunday's repeat municipal election in the northern port city of Nacala with 91 per cent of the votes cast - but this victory was only possible because the main opposition party, Renamo, boycotted the election.
A parallel vote count undertaken by the civil society observation consortium "Mais Integridade' ("More Integrity'), based on the results sheets ("editais') of the 18 Nacala polling stations where the election was re-run, showed that Frelimo won 3,227 votes (91 per cent of all valid votes cast).
Despite the boycott, a few Renamo supporters did go to the polls. Renamo won 221 votes (6.2 per cent). The second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), won 89 votes (2.5 per cent).
Four minor parties received no votes at all. There were also six blank ballots and six invalid votes.
12,983 voters were registered at the 18 polling stations, but just 3,694 votes were cast - a turnout of only 28.7 per cent.
Renamo justified its boycott on the grounds that it wanted the election to be repeated in the whole of Nacala municipality, rather than in only 18 polling stations.
This was a local Renamo decision, and the party's leadership in Maputo strongly disagreed with the boycott. Last week the Renamo mayor of Nacala, Raul Novinte, went to Maputo to negotiate with the party's top leaders, but to no avail.
"Mais Integridade' also reported that on Sunday night the police opened fire at a polling station in Gurue municipality, to disperse a crowd of voters.
In Marromeu municipality, police expelled a Renamo monitor from a polling station, after he had an argument with a Frelimo monitor.
Voting in Gurue was interrupted in more than half the polling stations, sometimes for as long as two hours, because of divergences between the voter rolls held by the polling station staff, and those in the possession of the political party monitors. The problem was eventually solved by photocopying the monitors' rolls.
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In some parts of Gurue, citizens alleged to be supporters of the New Democracy (ND) party placed themselves at polling station entrances, searched voters, and demanded to see their voter cards. Voters cited by "Mais Integridade' said they felt intimidated by this behavior.
At one polling station ND members assaulted a plain clothes police office, claiming that he was trying to vote without being registered in Gurue. Other police agents intervened and opened fire.
The Nacala polling station editais and minutes will now be sent directly to the Constitutional Council, the country's highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.
The Council must add the results from the 18 polling stations with those from the rest of the municipality, where it did not order a repeat election. Only then will the composition of the new Nacala municipal assembly be known.
