Maputo candidate asks Renamo not to side with ‘lies’

Renamo’s candidate for Maputo, Venancio Mondlane, this Friday asked the leadership of the largest opposition party not to join the “lies” of the Constitutional Council, which declared the victory of Frelimo in 56 municipalities in the sixth municipal elections.

“These results, which have been presented here, are not intended to disappoint any of us. You are only disappointed when you know that your defeat is a fair defeat. We are talking here about manipulations, we are talking here about falsified results, we are talking here about the Constitutional Council itself [CC] he has also entered into the gangster game,” Mondlane told supporters in the capital shortly after the results of the October 11 municipal elections were announced.

“We are talking here today, we who are present, and not those who fled, because there are people who were with us in the party, in the campaign, who have responsibilities in this party, who are not here with the people, it seems that they already knew about this result,” also criticized Venancio Mondlane, head of the list of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) in Maputo and who declared victory in this vote, attributed by the Central Committee to the candidate of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo party in power).

This Friday, the CC declared Frelimo the winner of local elections in Maputo (and in 55 other municipalities in the country), but reduced almost 30,000 votes that were attributed to the party in power in the capital.

“I hope that the Renamo party in the top leadership of Renamo knows how to respect the will of the people,” he insisted, referring to a meeting of the party’s Political Commission that is taking place this afternoon.

Since October, Mondlane has led dozens of demonstrations and marches in Maputo, two of which involved police intervention and a challenge to early election results. This movement spread to other cities in the country.

“I hope that the top leadership of Renamo at this moment knows which side they should be on: do they want to take the side of the Central Committee with their lies, with their untruths? Or do they want to side with the people with the truth? “Now it depends on the decision the party takes,” he added.

According to the unanimously approved resolution read today by the President of the Constitutional Court, Counselor Judge Lucia Ribeiro, Frelimu retained her victory in the capital, but with 206,333 votes and 37 mandates. Razaque Maniki, leader of Frelimo, was proclaimed by the Central Committee as the new mayor of Maputo.

However, on October 26, the National Electoral Commission (CNE), after conducting an interim and general vote count, attributed the victory to Frelimo, but with 234,406 votes and 43 mandates.

Following the appeals, the Central Committee re-evaluated the electoral process and allocated 29,073 votes to the Renamo list led by Venancio Mondlane, which declared victory based on a parallel vote count based on the original counting records and notifications.

“This is not the moment when we start to lose heart. This is not the moment to begin negotiations for a victory for the people. You can’t negotiate. The victory of the people is not a business. You can’t do business with the people winning.” people,” Mondlein added.

“They will actually give us leadership, but the leadership we expect is leadership based on truth, leadership based on respect for the will of the people,” he concluded.

The Central Committee of Mozambique today declared Frelimo the winner of the October 11 local elections in 56 municipalities against the previous 64, with Renamo winning four, and ordered the elections to be repeated in four.

On October 26, the CNE announced Frelimo’s victory in 64 of the 65 municipalities that took part in the vote.