Presidential candidate Daniel Chapo and the Frelimo party supporting his candidacy won the general elections held on Wednesday 9 October in Manica province, central Mozambique, according to provisional results released on Monday (14).
According to the data presented by the Manica Provincial Electoral Commission (the country’s eighth largest constituency, with 893,426 registered voters), Daniel Chapo won with 354,322 votes (66.71%), followed by Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the extra-parliamentary Optimist Party for Development (Podemos), with 130,925 votes (24.65%).
In third place was Ossufo Momade, supported by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the largest opposition party, with 31,867 votes (6%), and finally Lutero Simango, supported by the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), the third largest parliamentary force, with 14,027 votes (2.64%).
The electoral body announced that in the vote for the legislative elections, in which 250 deputies are to be chosen – 17 of whom are to be elected from the Manica constituency – Frelimo, with 341 636 votes (67.38%), Podemos, with 77 681 votes (15.52%), Renamo, with 47 122 votes (9.10%), and the MDM, with 14 764 votes (2.91%), occupy the top four places.
‘In the provincial assemblies, whose winning candidate is elected provincial governor, Frelimo also leads, with 382,743 votes (76.29 per cent), followed by Renamo, with 71,449 (14.24 per cent), and the MDM, with 47,504 votes (9.47 per cent),’ emphasise the figures made public.
Wednesday’s general elections included the seventh presidential elections – for which the current head of state, Filipe Nyusi, who has reached the constitutional limit of two terms, did not run – at the same time as the seventh legislative elections and the fourth elections for provincial assemblies and governors.
Running in this election for the Presidency of the Republic are Lutero Simango, supported by the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM, the third largest parliamentary force), Daniel Chapo, with the support of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power since 1975), Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the extra-parliamentary Podemos party, and Ossufo Momade, with the support of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party).
The publication of the presidential election results by the National Electoral Commission, if there is no second round, takes up to 15 days, before they are validated by the Constitutional Council, which has no deadlines for proclaiming the official results after analysing any appeals.
The vote included legislative seats (250 deputies) and seats for provincial assemblies and their respective provincial governors, in this case with 794 mandates to be distributed. The CNE approved lists of 35 political parties running for the Assembly of the Republic and 14 political parties and groups of voting citizens for the provincial assemblies.
