MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Mozambique is voting for a brand new president on Wednesday in an election that’s anticipated to prolong the ruling occasion’s 49 years in energy because the southern African nation gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Daniel Chapo, 47, is the candidate for the ruling Entrance for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, looking for to succeed President Filipe Nyusi, who has served a most two phrases.
Analysts say the strongest problem to Chapo and Frelimo’s dominance will possible come from 50-year-old unbiased Venancio Mondlane.
Folks additionally will vote for the make-up of Parliament and for provincial governors in a rustic of some 33 million those that went by means of a bloody, 15-year civil warfare that led to 1992, and extra not too long ago has been shaken by an ongoing violent jihadist insurgency within the north.
Ending that insurgency and bringing stability to Cabo Delgado province — the place 1.3 million fled their houses and greater than half stay displaced — is a pledge by each main candidates.
Vote-counting is because of begin proper after polls shut within the one-day election. Preliminary outcomes from some areas are anticipated from Thursday, and the complete outcomes should be delivered to the Constitutional Council inside 15 days of polls closing to be validated and formally declared. Round 17 million persons are registered to vote.
The credibility of the election can be underneath scrutiny, with the leftist Frelimo occasion accused of ballot-stuffing and falsifying ends in earlier votes, together with final yr’s native elections, the place it was declared the winner in 64 out of 65 municipalities.
Frelimo has persistently denied the accusations of election tampering. Groups of regional and worldwide election observers are in Mozambique, together with from the European Union.
Frelimo successfully established a one-party state following independence and fought a civil warfare in opposition to the Mozambique Nationwide Resistance, or Renamo, for a decade and a half. The nation, the place Portuguese stays the official language, held its first elections in 1994, two years after a peace settlement.
Renamo can be contesting this election, with occasion chief Ossufo Momade, a army commander within the civil warfare, its candidate for president. The previous insurgent group has seen its reputation wane, whereas the peace between Frelimo and Renamo has been fragile, with an outbreak of extra preventing in 2013. Momade and outgoing chief Nyusi signed one other peace deal in 2019, however tensions stay.
The unbiased Mondlane, who broke away from Renamo, has targeted his marketing campaign on younger Mozambicans annoyed with poverty and unemployment. The nation boasts a protracted shoreline of seashores on the Indian Ocean, however that susceptible space has been battered by cyclones and drought lately.
In the meantime, it emerged in 2016 that authorities officers and others had embezzled greater than $2 billion in overseas loans that had been saved secret, sending the economic system into disaster.
Mondlane was aligned with a coalition of opposition events, however they had been barred from contesting the election, which raised accusations in opposition to Frelimo of making an attempt to manage the election. Mondlane is now supported by a brand new occasion referred to as Podemos, which suggests “we will” in Portuguese.
Whereas Mondlane, a former banker, represents a recent problem to Frelimo, most analysts count on the ruling occasion to stay in energy. It was declared the winner with greater than 70% of the vote in nationwide elections 5 years in the past.
The Pangea danger firm, which gives safety and funding recommendation on creating international locations, stated Chapo’s election has been “fastidiously stage managed” by Frelimo.
Chapo labored as a radio announcer and tv presenter earlier than changing into a legislation professor. He was the governor of southern Inhambane province — Mozambique’s flagship tourism area — however was a shock winner of an inner occasion vote in Could to change into Frelimo’s presidential candidate.
Chapo can be Mozambique’s first chief born after independence if he wins.
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AP Africa information: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
Charles Mangwiro, The Related Press
