AFRICA/MOZAMBIQUE - Presidential and parliamentary elections: Bishops denounce irregularities and violence

Thursday, 24 October 2024 violence elections bishops

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Presidential and parliamentary elections: Bishops denounce irregularities and violence

Maputo (Agenzia Fides) - "The post-election period was marked by a cowardly attack to silence, if not the truth, then at least democracy". With these words, the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique condemned the murder of the two members of the opposition party PODEMOS, Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe, killed in an ambush after the parliamentary elections on October 9 (see Fides, 22/10/2024).
"We condemn the barbaric murder of two political figures, because it recalls, with similar methods, other murders of political or civil society figures, also linked to opposition parties, that took place following previous elections," said the Mozambican bishops in their statement of October 22.
The bishops also complain that there were serious irregularities in the election on October 9, such as "serious fraud, repeated insertion of ballot papers that had already been cast into the ballot box, falsification of news." Following the allegations of alleged electoral fraud and in connection with the murder of the two opposition representatives, protests broke out in Maputo and other cities on October 21, which were violently suppressed by the police. According to the Mozambican Business Association, the day of protest had serious economic consequences, with a loss of 203 million euros for the private sector.
The bishops are meanwhile calling for the right to demonstrate to be respected, but are appealing to the young demonstrators not to allow themselves to be instrumentalized in acts of violence.
In conclusion, the Bishops' Conference notes that "more than half of the registered voters did not go to the polls", stressing that "we have experienced the highest abstention in our history of multi-party elections, which seems to indicate that the irregularities and fraud recorded in previous elections have shown a large part of the population that their will expressed at the ballot box is not respected and the exercise of this important civil right is useless".
In conclusion, the Bishops called on everyone to take the path of forgiveness and courage towards the truth in order to return the country to normality. So far only some partial results of the election have been published, which point to a victory for FRELIMO, the party that has been in power since independence in 1975. The final official results are expected tomorrow, October 25. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 24/10/2024)