Mozambique’s Frelimo set for two-thirds majority

Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party was headed for a resounding victory in national polls on Sunday that would allow it to change the constitution at will and hand President Armando Guebuza a second term in office.

Estimates released on Sunday gave Guebuza 75 percent of the presidential vote, with Frelimo set for a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections that took place on Wednesday.

Afonso Dhlakama, candidate for the opposition Renamo party, was seen taking 15 percent of the vote in the presidential contest, with Davis Simango, head of the new Movement for Democratic Change (MDM) party, seen on 10 percent.

The estimates were compiled by the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin of the Association of European Parliamentarians of Africa (AWEPA) and the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organisation.

According to figures based on 72 percent of the vote counted, Frelimo had secured 192 seats, Renamo 48 and the MDM 8 in the 250-member parliament.

“There are fears that the party will amend the constitution to allow Guebuza to run for a third term and this is definitely not good for democrary. There should be space to balance opinion,” political analyst Moises Mabunda told Reuters.

No estimates have yet been released from provincial polls also held on Wednesday.

Guebuza’s Frelimo party has ruled Mozambique since it led the country to independence from Portugal in 1975.

A Guebuza win is expected to reassure investors, who want continuity in economic policy.

Sunday’s elections are the fourth multiparty polls since the end of a devastating 17-year civil war in 1992, with monitors saying they were generally well run.

The Commonwealth Observer Group has praised the general conduct of the poll, though it criticised Mozambique’s National Elections Commission for a lack of transparency over the exclusion of MDM candidates in a number of constituencies.

Observers from the Southern African Development Community said in an interim statement that Mozambique’s elections were a true reflection of the will of the people.

Reuters.