MAPUTO: mozambique’s main opposition party said it found an incident of possible fraud during voting in the national election yesterday.
Renamo officials at a polling station in the north-western Tete province said they prevented boxes stuffed with ballots already marked in favour of the Frelimo candidate, Filipe Nyusi, from entering a local polling station. Some Renamo officials were arrested and others reported the incident to international observers.
“We insisted we wanted to see the ballot boxes but they refused to let us in,” said Lynda Harper, an EU observer who was at the polling station.
When voters realised what was happening, they allegedly grabbed the ballot boxes and burned them. Renamo members also claim police opened fire on the crowd but they were unsure whether they fired live ammunition, rubber bullets or tear gas.
Tete is traditionally a stronghold of the ruling Frelimo party that has been in power since 1994. Mozambique’s National Elections Commission said they were investigating the incident.
Polls closed at 6pm local time but electoral officials said they would allow people already in queues to vote.
More than 10 million Mozambicans are eligible to vote of the country’s 26 million people. The past two elections have seen turn-outs of less than 50 percent, according to the Electoral Institute of Sustainable Democracy in Africa. Mozambicans are also voting for representatives in the 250-member National Assembly.
Mozambique’s election comes just months after a peace accord between the ruling Frelimo party and Renamo ended nearly two years of sporadic fighting in the north of the country. The two political parties were once guerrilla movements, fighting each other in the nation’s brutal civil war.
Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has called for peaceful elections. Dhlakama joined the presidential race only weeks ago, after emerging from hiding during the renewed violence.
– Sapa-AP