The Mozambican National Electoral Commission (CNE) will announce the results of the 9 October general elections on Thursday, though the Constitutional Council has yet to validate and proclaim them, the institution’s spokesman told Lusa on Tuesday.
“The announcement will be on Thursday,” said CNE spokesperson Paulo Cuinica this afternoon, when questioned by Lusa.
The CNE has 15 days to announce the official results of the October 9 vote, a deadline that will be met on October 24. The Constitutional Council will then be responsible for announcing the results, after also concluding its analysis of any appeals, but without a set deadline for this purpose.
This morning, presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for two days of nationwide “peaceful” protests and strikes in Mozambique, starting on Thursday, the day the CNE is expected to announce the results of the general elections.
“We’re going to sacrifice two days of our lives so that we can all demonstrate,” announced Mondlane, in a video of more than 45 minutes on the social network Facebook. “And we don’t need to inform the police or the municipality.
“The country must stand still for these two days,” he said, describing the action as the second stage of what he calls Mozambique’s “revolutionary roadmap” and saying that the CNE is preparing to announce “profoundly false results” of the 9 October general elections.
“It’s not what the people voted for – that’s clear,” he said in the video, referring to the tabulation of results at provincial level, which handed victory to the governing Frelimo party and its presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, with more than 60% of the vote.
In his speech – which he described as being made from an “uncertain location” – Mondlane said he was calling for “demonstrations in all the neighbourhoods, districts and administrative posts” in the country over the next two days, as a “gift” to the CNE.
Mozambique’s district and provincial electoral commissions have already finalised the results of the vote in their respective areas, which according to public announcements put Frelimo in front, and its presidential candidate, Chapo, with more than 60% of the votes. But Mondlane is contesting these results, claiming that the data in the original minutes and notices of the vote are incorrect.
Following the double murder of Elvino Dias, Mondlane’s lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, head of Podemos, the party that supports Mondlane, on Friday, the candidate also called for peaceful marches on Monday; those in Maputo were dispersed by police with gunfire and tear gas.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Mondlane warned that the day’s march was just the first of four phases of protests until the final results of the elections – which included the seventh presidential elections along with elections for parliament and for provincial assemblies and governors – are announced by the Constitutional Council.
Lusa
