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Maputo – Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party and its candidate Filipe Nyusi won this month’s presidential and legislative elections, according to provisional results announced yesterday, with votes counted from all provinces.
The initial full results of the October 15 vote will still need to be ratified by the Constitutional Court before becoming official and final.

The tally from the national electoral commission gave Nyusi 57 percent of the votes, while Renamo’s Afonso Dhlakama had just over 36 percent and Daviz Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement obtained nearly 7 percent.

Frelimo, which has ruled Mozambique since its independence in 1975, also maintained its majority in the 250-seat parliament.

Renamo, the main opposition party, and its candidate, former civil war rebel leader Dhlakama, have alleged widespread fraud and irregularities in the elections in the former Portuguese colony on southern Africa’s Indian Ocean coast.

But the vote was endorsed as broadly acceptable by international observers.

Dhlakama, who has lost every major election to the ruling party since the end of a 1975-1992 civil war, says he will challenge the results but has ruled out violence, which is reassuring for foreign donors and investors.

Mozambique is hoping revenue from its large natural gas deposits and its fledgling coal mining and export industry will help it emerge from years of poverty and aid dependence. – Reuters