Unknown arsonists have set fire to the Murrupelane primary school, in Nacala-Porto, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula.
The Murrupelane primary school is home to nine of the 18 polling stations that the Constitutional Council ordered the repetition of municipal elections after the body detected election irregularities.
The National Electoral Commission (CNE) spokesperson, Paulo Cuinica, told a press conference on Wednesday said that burning of the school has not been enough to prevent the election from taking place on Sunday, as ordered by the Constitutional Court.
Comment
The 11 October 2023 municipal elections dossier is likely to be a powder keg with the potential to explode in the hands of the main players and election outcome direct beneficiaries, namely the ruling Frelimo party, the leader of the Renamo opposition, Ossufo Momade, the Constitutional Council, the CNE, and the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE).
Meanwhile, according to local source, “there’s a huge conflict between the local Renamo leadership and the grassroots. The grassroots want a repetition in all polling centres or no elections at all, and accuse the local leadership, the current mayor Raúl Novinte, and the provincial leadership to be in cahoots with Ossufo Momade, to accept the Constitutional Council’s decisions.”
The source told Mozambique Insights that on Sunday there is likely to be chaos, adding that the population from two neighbouring schools has been “warned” to leave the area.
As a party, Renamo emerges as an alternative to Frelimo and to itself, that is, the faces protesting the election outcomes in Maputo city and Quelimane, Venâncio Mondlane and Manuel de Araújo, respectively, belong to Renamo but not to the guerilla movement Renamo, and more active in protesting the results than the Renamo leadership.
On the other hand, figures like António Muchanga, Renamo’s head of list in Matola city, whose protest efforts have been seen as a fiasco considering his diatribe against Frelimo and the system be it in parliament or in television and radio stations. “More was expected of Muchanga than from Venâncio and Araújo. This Muchanga has been very docile and readily accepted the results than he has always implied,” said an analyst.
It is important to note that in local political and journalistic circles there are rumours that Momade is President Filipe Nyusi’s stooge in Renamo and that Muchanga was paid by the intelligence services to accept the results.
As for the masterminds of the electoral fraud, whose motivations can only be guessed and due to Frelimo’s strategy (i) to explicitly refuse there was fraud while meanwhile accepting the Constitutional Council’s ruling on the elections, and (ii) to avoid celebrating its ostensible win loudly, there are issues that they did not neither hash out or plan for accordingly “either because they’re part of the problem or because of political naivety, as is, for example, the case of the popular reaction to the results as is happening currently in Nacala-Porto,” said the analyst.
As for Frelimo, it should view the protests which can quickly degenerate into riots and the refusal by the Renamo grassroots in Nacala-Porto, even if limited to 18 polling stations, as indicative that it may not be able to govern without legitimacy. They may be an escalation in violence in some parts of the country with the potential to spread due to the discontent that motivated the massive vote against Frelimo.
What would happen should the insurgents in Cabo Delgado move down to neighbouring Nampula, successfully recruit from the disgruntled Renamo grassroots, and manage to open a new front? This could be in the realm of possibility as a group of insurgents attacked the Chipene Catholic Mission, the district of Memba, north of Nacala-a-Velha and close to Nacala-Porto, in September 2022, killing a nun as well as beheading two community members.
Meanwhile, in the Maganja da Costa municipality, in the Zambézia province, three people were admitted into the local hospital, two of which have already been released while one has been interned, following a riot by Renamo members who are still protesting the election results even though the Constitutional Council has already ruled in favour of a Frelimo win.
Clearly, the election debacle could be a case of dangerous minds playing dangerous games.
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