Election validation day in Mozambique, threatened with “chaos”

Day of all dangers in Mozambique: the validation of the result, contested in the streets, of the presidential and legislative elections is expected Monday in the southern African country, where the main opponent promised the « chaos » if the victory of the ruling party was confirmed.

The Constitutional Council is due to announce Monday at 3:00 p.m. (1:00 p.m. GMT) the result of the October 9 vote, which plunged Mozambique into an unprecedented post-electoral crisis.

Two months of street protests have cost the lives of at least 130 people, most of them demonstrators killed with live ammunition, according to the local NGO Plataforma Decide.

This is the “the most dangerous post-election protest” of the country's history for the Frelimo party, at the head of Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975, estimates Mozambican researcher Borges Nhamirre.

Far from running out of steam, the movement could intensify on Monday: Venancio Mondlane, the opponent who claims electoral victory, called for a “new popular uprising on a scale never seen before”in the event that the results crowning the Frelimo candidate, Daniel Chapo, as president, would be approved despite the quantities of irregularities raised by various international observation missions.

Which leaves little doubt: “The Constitutional Council is not politically independent”explains Mr. Nhamirre, consultant at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria (South Africa).

“There will be trouble”he predicts. “The question – which I don’t think anyone can answer – is how long it will last.”.

These weeks of demonstrations do not follow any usual pattern in this country, one of the poorest in the world. The predominance of the informal economy forces a large part of Mozambicans to live from day to day just to feed their family.

No “bargaining”

“It was said that the protest movements in Mozambique could not last more than a month”explains Borges Nhamirre. “It's nothing like what we're used to seeing. »

This has a lot to do with Venancio Mondlane. Anyone who mobilizes his supporters via rituals live on social networks refuses any compromise with Frelimo. For example, on Saturday he denounced those who negotiate positions: “Dialogue is one thing, bargaining is another. »

Claiming to be the victim of two assassination attempts – which can be confirmed by the murders of two opposition figures in October – the former political commentator on Mozambican television has taken refuge abroad for weeks.

More « Venancio »as he is simply called in the street, implied that he could return to Maputo on January 15 for the inauguration.

“On January 15, we will take power in Maputo”he said. “If we have to lose our life in a just fight, we will lose it. »

“After such a long protest movement, this goes beyond + Venancio +”estimates from Maputo Johann Smith, analyst in political and security risks for multinationals.

Many of the 33 million inhabitants of this country, among the most unequal in the world, were counting on these elections to turn the page on Frelimo, of Marxist inspiration during the war of independence and then the civil war, which ended in 1990.

But the Electoral Commission declared Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo the winner with 71% of the vote, compared to only 20% allocated to Venancio Mondlane. Fake figures, according to the latter, who claims 53% of the votes after a parallel count.

“He was the spark, but people are really angry”juge Johann Smith. “I could be wrong but even if he gets killed or something, the movement will continue. It's almost spring in southern Africa. »

An allusion to the electoral decline in South Africa of the ANC, the party in power since 1994 forced into a coalition, then to the historic rout in Botswana of the BDP which had led the country since 1966. So many snubs inflicted this year on parties of release in the region.