Mozambique confirms ruling party won election reigniting protests

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Mozambique’s highest electoral body confirmed the ruling party’s controversial election victory despite allegations of vote-rigging, reigniting the largest anti-government protests to hit the gas-rich country since independence.

The announcement sparked a new round of unrest in the capital Maputo, with thousands taking to the streets to burn tyres and symbols of the state. Gunshots rang out as police fired live bullets to disperse crowds in various locations.

“There is total madness, people are burning everything that represents the state. This is going to be one of the ugliest nights in our history,” said Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Maputo.

The Courts of Justice was also set alight, with angry protesters pelting the building with stones as plumes of black smoke rose. Videos on social media showed protests also taking place elsewhere in the country.

The Constitutional Council affirmed on Monday that Daniel Chapo, the candidate for Frelimo, won 65 per cent of the vote in the October 9 poll, extending the party’s half-century grip on power.

Opposition candidate Venâncio Mondlane received 24 per cent share of the vote.

Mondlane has rejected all official results, saying his own tally gave him a majority. The EU mission also said it witnessed “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling stations”, although it did not confirm whom it believed had won.

Chapo is due to assume office in January, although Mondlane has said he will hold his own parallel inauguration next month.

Allegations of vote rigging have tipped the country into weeks of violence that have left at least 130 people dead and shown little sign of subsiding.

While Mondlane has been in hiding since the assassination of two key allies in October, the 50-year-old engineer appears regularly on social media to direct what have now become the biggest and longest-running demonstrations since Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1975.

The Council’s decision would “determine whether Mozambique will advance towards peace or towards chaos”, Mondlane said earlier this month.

The spiral of protests follows a wave of anti-incumbency across southern Africa as voters seek to dislodge liberation-era parties whose legacy resisting colonialism or white minority rule has long since been tainted by years of mismanagement, corruption and authoritarianism.

Polls in Botswana and South Africa this year have seen such parties either lose power or forced into coalitions amid pressing concerns around the region about growing inequality and soaring unemployment.

Few analysts expect Frelimo to willingly relinquish its hold on power, which could in turn mean an increasingly violent deadlock.

Outgoing President Filipe Nyusi said this month that though there “not everyone could be a winner”, he would not declare a state of emergency that would enable him to stay in power indefinitely.

The protests have periodically brought key cities to a standstill and halted border trading routes.

“I hope [the Council] will bring good news to the people of Mozambique, because otherwise this country will burn to ashes,” said Azarias Massinguile, a 69-year-old security guard on one of the city’s main avenues, who said he planned to sleep in his workplace in case of rioting.

More than 130 people have been killed, many shot by the police with live bullets, according to a count by local watchdog Decide Platform.

The upheaval has also cost the economy. It is likely to prove a further setback to the development of TotalEnergies’ $20bn liquefied natural gas fields in the north of the country, which has been halted since the company declared force majeure in 2021.

Agostinho Vuma, the president of the country’s main business chamber, said that some multinationals had approached him to see if the chamber could request military escorts for their businesses.

Maputo port terminal operator Grindrod said this month that two dozen ships had been delayed, and six had turned around altogether. South32 Ltd, which operates Mozal, the region’s biggest aluminium smelter, said it had reduced electricity usage to “preserve raw materials and maintain operational stability”.

South Africa, the subcontinent’s biggest economy, has at times deployed soldiers to quell unrest that has shut down freight along its land borders.

“Industries across the region, including mining, agriculture, automotive, and manufacturing, have been severely affected,” Kage Barnett, a spokesperson for the Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders told local media. “Exports of chrome and other minerals faced delays, disrupting global supply chains and driving up costs for exporters.”