The first preliminary results of Mozambique’s general election last Wednesday — yet to be officially released — suggest a landslide victory for the ruling Frelimo party and its presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo.
However, independent election observers have identified evidence of widespread irregularities.
Across the country’s central Tete province, partial results published by local authorities show that Chapo and Frelimo won more than 90% of the vote in the presidential and legislative elections in several districts. Chapo has reportedly taken 77% of the vote so far in Cabo Delgado province, where the government has been fighting an Islamic State-backed insurgency since 2017.
In the capital Maputo, preliminary results were more varied but still gave Frelimo a clear lead, with six districts reporting victory for the ruling party with between 79% and 51% of the vote.
Throughout the whole country, the official figures paint a clear picture — Frelimo was the decisive winner of the elections. But these figures are contested by opposition parties.
Venâncio Mondlane — an anti-establishment presidential candidate for the Podemos party, who gathered huge momentum on the campaign — has claimed victory. Podemos published its parallel count on Saturday, based on result notices posted outside polling stations, which suggest that Mondlane won in eight out of Mozambique’s 11 provinces. Podemos claimed this was based on results from about 35% of all polling stations across the country.
Wilker Dias, a co-ordinator for the independent election observatory Plataforma Decide, told Business Day that Mondlane’s claim of victory was premature and it was unlikely he had access to enough results to say who won.
Dias said Chapo appeared to be winning in most of the country but Mondlane was close behind in several provinces. Election observers had not endorsed Podemos’ results but they had expressed concern about the integrity of the election.
The EU’s election observation mission told reporters on Friday it witnessed slow and disorganised counting, poorly sealed ballot boxes and cases of possible ballot stuffing.
Laura Ballarín, the head of the EU’s observation mission, also highlighted “a notable lack of credibility in the reliability of the electoral registers,” saying in several provinces the number of voters was higher than the total voting age population.
The US-funded International Republican Institute (IRI), which deployed its own observation mission, said the electoral process in Mozambique had “fallen short of international standards”.
IRI noted there had been serious delays in accrediting observers, Frelimo had abused state resources for campaigning, and there was a general lack of transparency in publishing results outside polling stations, which is legally required.
More than 200 polling stations also denied journalists and observers access to the vote count, according to Sala da Paz, a Mozambican civil society organisation. Business Day was inexplicably barred from observing the counting process at one polling station in Maputo.
The partial results indicate Mondlane has almost completely displaced the traditional opposition parties in many areas across Mozambique.
Ossufo Momade — the leader of the country’s main opposition party, Renamo — won less than 5% of the vote in some districts. In one fell swoop, Mondlane has redrawn Mozambique’s political geography.
If Chapo wins the presidency, it is unlikely he will depart significantly from his predecessor, Filipe Nyusi. However, he has pledged to renegotiate contracts with multinational companies operating major energy and extractive projects to reinforce their social responsibility and ensure they pay more tax.
“This is something we’ll have to sit down and look at on a case-by-case basis. There are cases that really can’t be reviewed, but there are cases that will have to be reviewed, which is so that, as a result, we can increase state revenue and, based on that, we can develop our Mozambique with more revenue,” Chapo said at an election campaign meeting in Maputo.
The consultancy Deloitte estimated earlier in 2024 that Mozambique’s natural gas reserves could produce up to $100bn in revenue. The TotalEnergies-led $20bn liquefied natural gas project in Cabo Delgado has been suspended since an Islamic State-backed insurgent attack on Palma in March 2021.
The ANC has historically had close links to Frelimo. Mozambican civil society organisation the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of “unacceptable interference” in Mozambican politics when he received Chapo in Pretoria in September.
The head of CDD, Adriano Nuvunga, said the meeting represented “a flagrant abuse of [Ramaphosa’s] position as head of state and leader of a dominant party in a neighbouring nation.”
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