Riots erupt after Mozambique's Constitutional Council upholds ...

Mozambique braced itself for a resurgence of turbulent protests as the country’s Constitutional Council on Monday confirmed the ruling Frelimo party and its presidential candidate Daniel Chapo as the overwhelming winners of the controversial legislative and presidential 9 October elections.

Barricades of burning tyres were set up in Maputo and a riot erupted in the northern city of Nacala, according to local media. There were also reports that rioters set a police station on fire in the Maputo neighbourhood of Mahotas.

Rioting was also spreading across Zambezia province, including the burning down of a local Frelimo office on Monday evening.

Opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, the head of the Podemos party, had earlier warned that violence and chaos would ensue if Constitutional Council President Lúcia Ribeiro did not declare him the real victor in the elections, which were marred by widespread accusations of rigging.

“The fate of Mozambique, stability or violence, will drop from the mouth of Lúcia Ribeiro,” Mondlane declared in his last Facebook post before Ribeiro, flanked by the six other judges of the council, read out the decision in an announcement on Monday afternoon lasting one hour and 40 minutes.

At least 110 people have already died across the country in protests since the October elections, according to the rights group Amnesty International.

In a new post on Monday after the council’s announcement, Mondlane called for a general strike until Friday, according to Mozambique’s official news agency AIM. He had already ordered a shutdown of all workplaces on Monday.

He said this was a “unique moment” for the people to organise the country.

“We should reflect until Friday,” he said. “The resistance is in the streets, in the squares and in the day-to-day activities of the people. Now is the time to take a position, to be smart, to show that we will no longer accept oppression. The armed forces and the security forces can no longer act violently against the people on the pretext that they are defending legality.

“It’s time to act with intelligence, wisdom and unity. We need to mobilise the entire country and not just the large cities. The time is now,”  Mondlane said, according to AIM.

In its announcement, the Constitutional Council tweaked the official results announced by the National Election Commission on 24 October, decreasing Chapo’s share of the presidential vote from 70.67% to 65.17% and increasing Mondlane’s share from 20.32% to 24.19%. Ossufo Momade of Renamo came third with 6.62% and Lutero Simango of the MDM fourth with 4.02%

These results by the highest court in the country officially confirmed an overwhelming victory for Chapo.

The Constitutional Council also refined the National Assembly results, decreasing Frelimo’s seats from 195 to 171 of the total of 250 seats, and increasing those of Podemos from 31 to 43. It increased Renamo’s seats from 20 to 28 and MDM’s from four to eight. But again these results left the incumbent Frelimo with victory by a landslide.

The council also confirmed Frelimo’s victory in all 10 provincial assemblies.

The South African government braced for possible spillover from protests in Mozambique. Speaking from the Lebombo border post in Mpumalanga, the main entry point for South Africans into Mozambique, Michael Masiapato, the CEO of SA’s Border Management Authority (BMA), said his Mozambican counterparts had informed him that Mondlane’s “V8 Turbo” protests, as he has dubbed them, were about to start as a result of the Constitutional Council’s announcement confirming Frelimo’s election victory.

“So we are very much ready at the border post to deal with any eventuality,” he said.

Read more: SA and Mozambique in pact to ‘mitigate disruption’ at ports of entry after trade plummets

Masiapato added that a strong contingent of border guards and members of the SA Police Service and SA National Defence Force were ready to protect the Lebombo border post infrastructure and personnel. The border post has been intermittently closed over the last few weeks by opposition protesters who attacked the Ressano Garcia border post on the Mozambique side.

Masiapato said the BMA had on Monday processed about 8,000 people through the border, about 6,000 of whom had crossed from SA into Mozambique. He said the BMA had not processed cargo through the port because of concerns about possible protests on the Mozambique side.

He added that if protests forced the BMA to shut Lebombo completely, it would divert traffic through the nearby Mananga border post into Eswatini and from there through the Namaacha border post into Mozambique.

Mondlane, who is in hiding, claiming he feared for his life, had earlier posted a message on Facebook that the “Turbo V8 period” of heightened protests would in effect be announced by Judge Ribeiro.

“She will have to decide between the electoral truth and the electoral lie, which will determine whether the future will be one of peace or chaos. All responsibility for the country’s future will be in the hands of the 7 members of the Constitutional Council.”

The streets of Maputo were deserted and most shops closed on Monday, indicating that Mondlane’s instructions had been obeyed. But the council’s announcement had barely been made when Mondlane’s supporters raced to set up burning barricades on the road from central Maputo to the airport, and images of smoke billowing into the sky were posted on social media.

Mondlane and other opposition leaders and independent analysts have claimed massive fraud in the elections. They said this included the registration as voters of people who do not exist (“ghost voters”), ballot box stuffing, huge discrepancies between the numbers of people voting in the three elections and refusal to allow opposition monitors to attend the count at the polling stations.

Judge Ribeiro admitted that fraud had happened, but downplayed its significance. She said the “corrections” the Constitutional Council had made to the results avoided the need for a recount.

“The irregularities that occurred during the elections did not substantially influence the results,” she claimed.

Read more: Mozambique democratic crisis — an urgent call for international solidarity and intervention to protect human rights

Veteran Mozambique commentator Joseph Hanlon noted that the Constitutional Council had “confirmed major fraud, taking 6% of presidential votes and 26 parliament seats away from Frelimo. But the Constitutional Council gave no explanations for its changes, which were large enough to show fraud and that the election lacked credibility.

“But the changes were actually much smaller than the fraud found by observers, and without a Constitutional Council explanation will not be seen as credible.”

Some analysts have said that Mondlane has not produced proof that he won the election — but then neither has Frelimo.

“Despite his insistent claims of victory, Mondlane has not presented any evidence,” said AIM on Monday.

“The key evidence is the polling station results sheets, and he has not published any of them. Neither has the [National Election Commission] or Frelimo, so claims by any of the contestants cannot be taken seriously,” it added.

Daily Maverick attempted to reach Mondlane for comment on the Constitutional Council ruling but a response had not been received by the time of publication. Comment will be added once received. DM