Inside Maputo International Airport, dozens of people are sitting and lying down waiting for the hands of the clock to strike 4pm, the time when vehicles are authorised to circulate on days of demonstrations in Mozambique.
“We won’t be able to get out of here, we’ll have to stay here until at least 4pm [2pm in Lisbon],” Arlete Pestana, 45, explained to Lusa outside Maputo International Airport.
At issue is the blocking of several access roads in Maputo between 8am and 4pm, as part of the protests called by Venâncio Mondlane, the presidential candidate contesting the results of the 9 October elections.
In total, Arlete will have to sit on one of the benches at the airport for almost eight hours, alongside dozens of other people.
“I’ve been here for more than four hours and I’m waiting for a flight that will arrive at 3pm (…). I hope to get home later” after traffic is cleared, Ribeiro Mawatareque, who arrived before 8am and is waiting for a relative, explained to Lusa.
In the car park, sitting in the shade, taxi drivers are keeping count, with their eyes on the airport exit, as some passengers arriving during the period of restricted traffic sometimes insist on making a trip.
“The prices of the [transport] app itself are already unsustainable for us drivers and now we still have to pay some money at the barricades commonly called ‘tolls’. But it is possible to make a journey and we even leave here to take passengers to various points in Maputo city,” Frederico Tembe, a driver, explained to Lusa.
One of the ‘tolls’ that Frederico and his colleagues have to face is just over 300 metres from the airport, where a group of young people are already playing football in the hot sun.
Wilton Justino, 26, is in this group and explains that nobody is charging money there.
“We’re taking advantage of the road to play football and socialise. In the midst of this, there are some profiteers who collect money and end up tarnishing all of us (…). The protests make sense. What happens is that there are profiteers who use the cause to vandalise and create riots that have nothing to do with anything,” said Wilton Justino.
Like Wilton Justino, Dorian Matável, another young member of the group, also believes that the demonstrations are ‘fair’.
“We all agree and that’s why the country is at a standstill. Everyone is feeling the effects of bad governance (…). Even those who are putting up barricades, at some point this is a result of such suffering,” added Dorian Matable.
At least 12 people died and another 34 were shot in the new phase of demonstrations and stoppages challenging the election results that began on Wednesday, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Plataforma Eleitoral Decide said today.
These cases are in addition to another 76 deaths and 240 shootings in 41 days of demonstrations to contest the election results, from 21 October to 1 December, according to the previous report by the electoral monitoring platform, which also estimated ‘more than 3,000 arrests’.
The announcement by Mozambique’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) on 24 October of the results of the 9 October elections, in which it awarded victory to Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for country’s president, with 70.67% of the vote, triggered popular protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and which have degenerated into violent clashes with the police.
Lusa
