Voting begins in Mozambique to elect new president, parliament

MAPUTO, Mozambique

About 17 million registered voters in Mozambique are voting on Wednesday to elect a new president, members of parliament and provincial governors in an election widely expected to extend 49 years in power of the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO).

The incumbent president Filipe Nyusi will step down in January next year at the end of his second five-year term.

According to the National Election Commission (CNE), more than 36 political parties are participating at different levels of the elections.

Four presidential candidates have been approved to contest in the presidential election by the Constitutional Council which is the highest body that deals with constitutional and electoral matters in Mozambique.

Ruling FRELIMO party’s presidential candidate Daniel Chapo, 47, is expected to face a stiff challenge from Venancio Mondlane, an independent candidate. The other two candidates are Ossufo Momade of the former rebel movement Renamo and Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDC).

This will be Mozambique’s seventh general election since multiparty democracy was introduced to the country in 1994, two years after FRELIMO signed a peace deal with Renamo rebels in Rome to end a 16-year civil war that killed nearly 1 million people and displaced millions of others.