“When I was in South Africa, assassins were at my door looking to kill me. I had to jump out the back door, run to a hair salon in the Sandton area (near Johannesburg, editor’s note), run with my bags and my family”assured Venancio Mondlane, who claims victory in the presidential election.
The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared to AFP on Monday that it had not “no knowledge of Mr Mondlane’s presence in South Africa”. “Anyone who has knowledge of a crime having been committed or an attempt to commit a crime should report it to the South African Police Service”he added.
According to official results announced on October 24, Mozambique’s ruling party for 49 years, Frelimo, won the presidential and parliamentary elections on October 9. Frelimo was credited by the electoral commission with more than 70% of the votes in this election, which was marred by numerous irregularities according to international observers.
Venancio Mondlane, who says he left South Africa, reiterated his call for a seven-day strike, “total paralysis” expected to culminate in a large march in the capital Maputo on Thursday, which he announces as the “Mozambique Liberation Day”.
Activities in the capital were still slow on Monday, according to an AFP team, and several gatherings were dispersed, notably by tear gas fire. Since the start of the protest in October, violence against demonstrators has resulted in at least eleven deaths, according to several NGOs.
The anti-corruption NGO Public Integrity Center (CIP) estimated that it was about the elections “the most fraudulent since 1999”already highly contested in this poor southern African country which is among the bottom ten in the world regarding the human development index (HDI), according to the UN. The European Union mission noted in particular “unjustified alterations of results”noting that in a third of the counts observed, the figures “do not agree”.
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