The Mozambican president said on Monday that “threats of [infrastructure] sabotage” associated with the challenge to the election results called by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane – did not go down “very well” with Mozambicans, recalling that the country has laws to obey.
“The moment that followed, of open threats of sabotage to some entities and institutions, that moment did not go down very well with our society, in which threats were made about this or that,” declared President of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi.
Speaking in Maputo during a reception for representatives of the ‘March 8 Generation Association’, the Mozambican president said that, after the announcement of the results of the October 9 elections by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), “different types of statements” followed.
“I don’t want to judge at this point, but there were [following] moments when there were proclamations of victory, in different ways of demonstrating, which is not bad for someone to think that they would win or will win, this happens in different ways, but the boundaries exist, the regulations exist and are obeyed,” Nyusi warned.
On Friday, Mozambique experienced the third day of the so-called “third phase” of the fourth stage of strikes and demonstrations to contest the election results called by Venâncio Mondlane, who denies the victory of Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo with 70.67% of the votes, as announced by the CNE.
According to the CNE, Mondlane came in second place, with 20.32%, but he has stated that he does not recognize the results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the Constitutional Council.
Mondlane said that the protests will continue “until the electoral truth is restored” and called for three days of pots-and-pans-banging demonstration between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. which have been heard throughout the country, and which have degenerated into new outbreaks of street violence.
After street protests that paralyzed the country on October 21, 24 and 25, Mondlane called for a seven-day general strike starting October 31, with nationwide protests and a demonstration culminating in Maputo on Thursday, November 7. This resulted in chaos in the capital, with barricades erected, tires burned, and tear gas fired by the police throughout the day to disperse the protests.