Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi today warned of the risk of ‘political solutions’ in the face of post-election tension characterised by demonstrations and stoppages in the country, arguing that they require abandoning the law.
‘There is language that you used in your introduction, that you need political solutions and not police and military ones, but you could also say non-legal ones, because sometimes when you take a political measure, you sometimes abandon the law and that law is what binds us,’ defended Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, responding to businesspeople who today suggested political solutions to overcome the post-election crisis.
To the country’s private business sector, Nyusi said that he has held several meetings in search of solutions to the post-election crisis characterised by demonstrations and stoppages, in a scenario where the ‘many sensitivities conflict’ in their proposals.
‘Laws are made by people and we have to see at what moments we go for one solution or another to avoid creating cyclical precedents at the level of our country (…) The meetings we are holding tend to look for solutions and often we can be in a box, closed in, thinking that we have better solutions,’ pointed out the Mozambican President, also referring to the “political” solution proposed by businesspeople.
The Mozambican businesspeople asked Filipe Nyusi for measures to put an end to the ‘vandalism’ of institutions and lead to the restoration of peace with political solutions.
‘We believe that the solution to the current crisis can only be political and not of any other nature, least of all military, police or any other type of pressure,’ said the president of the Mozambican President of Economic Associations (CTA), Agostinho Vuma.
Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane called for a new phase of electoral contestation lasting a week, from 4 to 11 December, in ‘all the neighbourhoods’ of Mozambique, with a stoppage of traffic from 8am to 4pm (two hours less in Lisbon).
The announcement by the 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 Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for Mozambican President, with 70.67% of the votes, triggered popular protests, called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane and which have degenerated into violent clashes with the police.
According to the CNE, Mondlane came second with 20.32%, but the latter does not recognise the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.
Lusa
