The resource-rich Southern African nation of 35 million is on a knife’s edge this week, awaiting official results of the Oct. 9 presidential and parliamentary elections.
So far, things are not looking good.
Preliminary results show the candidate of the long-ruling Frelimo party in the lead, but EU election observers say there were irregularities in the vote count. Supporters of opposition leader Venancio Mondlane clashed with riot police on the streets of Maputo, the capital, on Monday, after a weekend in which Mondlane’s lawyer and another prominent opposition figure were shot dead in a car. The two men had pledged hours earlier to officially challenge the legitimacy of the election at the constitutional court. Coincidence? Mondlane doesn’t think so: He has blamed the government for the murder.
Frelimo, in power for half a century, has been accused of vote rigging and human rights abuses in the past, and rights groups said the party had clamped down on dissent ahead of the vote.
At stake: Two-thirds of Mozambicans live in extreme poverty, and the country is struggling to eradicate a localized jihadist insurgency that has been blocking expansive natural gas developments. Election-related violence could make things worse on both counts.