PREVIEW
The decision by runner-up Venâncio Mondlane to rebuff President Filipe Nyusi's offer of talks on 26 November means the impasse will continue
After weeks of denial by the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) that there were serious problems with its claimed victory in the 9 October election, President Filipe Nyusi has been trying to draw the opposition parties – which reject the official results – into negotiations. The protests and violence around the disputed elections have left at least 30 people dead (AC Vol 65 No 23, All roads lead to Maputo). Two opposition legal advisors were shot dead by unidentified assassins in Maputo.
Venâncio Mondlane, runner up in the election according to the official results, has turned down Nyusi’s invitation for talks. The offer of talks was also extended to Resistência Nacional Moçambicana’s (Renamo) presidential candidate Ossufo Momade and Lutero Simango of the Movimento Democrático de Moçambique (MDM), a sign that Frelimo has little intention of giving Mondlane and his allied party, Partido Otimista pelo Desinvolvimento de Moçambique (Podemos), any favourable treatment.
Both minor party candidates attended the short meeting, along with President-elect Daniel Chapo.
During a state of the nation address last week, Nyusi, who is standing down after two terms in office, pointed to the economic damage caused by weeks of protests since the disputed polls, which were officially, won by Chapo of Nyusi’s Frelimo party with 71% of the vote. Mondlane, who was credited with 20%, claims that he won, and international election observers stated that there were major irregularities in the tallying of votes at polling stations across the country. The electoral commission has declined demands made by observers to publish the results from individual polling stations (AC Vol 65 No 21, Mondlane’s vote surge overturns the status quo).
The MDM’s Simango has said that the election results should be annulled and fresh polls held.
On Monday, a group of Mozambican academics and activists had their own audience with President Nyusi, telling journalists afterwards that they had urged that the post-election protests should serve as an opportunity to ‘refound the state’.
Mondlane, who fled to South Africa after his aide and lawyer were killed shortly before legally challenging the results, had said that he would only attend the talks virtually, adding on Facebook on Tuesday that he had received no reply from Nyusi to this request and a list of other demands.
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