Mozambique media: Guebuza and Frelimo re-elected in Mozambique

Nov 2, 2009, 15:20 GMT

Maputo - Five days after Mozambique's presidential and parliamentary elections, local media on Monday reported that incumbent Armando Guebuza and his ruling Frelimo party had been re- elected by a landslide.

With provisional results from 89 per cent of all polling stations counted, Guebuza had won 2,624,565 million votes (76 per cent), ahead of 513,895 for his nearest rival, longtime opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama (15 per cent). Five years ago, Guebuza won with 64 per cent.

The partial results, which were carried by Radio Mozambique and Mozambique Television (TVM) and confirmed by the national electoral commission (CNE), also showed the ruling Frelimo party increasing its dominance.

Based on its share of the vote, Frelimo had won 192 seats in the 250-seat National Assembly, against 48 for Dhlakama's Renamo and 8 for the Democratic Movement of Mozambique, a new party led by the mayor of Beira city, Daviz Simango.

Going into the election, Frelimo had 190 seats and Renamo 60.

Based on the votes counted, around 5 million people, or around half of all 10.3 million eligible voters, participated in the October 28 synchronized presidential, parliamentary and provincial assembly elections.

A spokesman for the CNE said the body would not yet confirm the official winner until November 15.

The election was always expected to be a shoo-in for Guebuza and Frelimo, the party of liberation from Portuguese rule, which has been in power since 1975.

Renamo, which fought a 16-year civil war with Frelimo, is still struggling to shake off its guerrilla image.

Once staunchly Marxist, Frelimo has embraced free-market policies in recent years and the country of around 20 million people, one of the world's poorest, has become one of Africa's success stories.

A surge of foreign investment in gas, coal, hydropower, mineral sands and other sectors has fuelled strong gross domestic product GDP growth, which is expected to come in at over 5 per cent this year.

Analysts had predicted the real contest would be for second place in the presidential race. At one point, Simango, an ex-Renamo member who campaigned for greater decentralization of resources, had pulled ahead of Dhlakama but by Monday he was trailing him with just 303,585 votes, or 9 per cent.

Simango's MDM went into the assembly elections with a major handicap, after being barred by the electoral commission from contesting nine of 13 constituencies on a technicality. Simango accused the body of being biased in favour of Frelimo.