Presidential election in Mozambique 2014
The 2014 presidential election in Mozambique took place on October 15, 2014 at the same time as the parliamentary and provincial parliament elections as the fifth presidential election of the South African state of Mozambique . They gave a clear majority of 57% of the votes cast for the presidential candidate of the longstanding ruling party FRELIMO , Filipe Nyusi . At the same time, however, his most important challenger, Afonso Dhlakama from the equally longstanding opposition party RENAMO , doubled his share of the vote with 36% compared to the 2009 presidential election . The third candidate, Daviz Simango from the Movimento Democrático de Moçambique (MDM) party , suffered losses compared to 2009 and still got a good 6% of the vote.
Negotiations and armed conflicts in the run-up to the elections
The two main competitors, Filipe Nyusi from FRELIMO and the head of RENAMO, Afonso Dhlakama, stood for the two rival warring parties in the Mozambican civil war , which raged between 1977 and 1992. Afonso Dhlakama, the undisputed authoritarian head of RENAMO even during the civil war, had also run as his party's candidate in all four previous presidential elections since 1994 and, according to the official results, had claimed victory for himself and after all of these elections, which were each won by the FRELIMO candidate his defeat attributed to election fraud.
Not least because the former guerrilla organization RENAMO never surrendered its weapons from the civil war and Dhlakama had a strong and armed private army, the FRELIMO government had entered into negotiations with Dhlakama about the electoral system and in particular at Dhlakama's request in the run-up to the elections, to legally establish a group of several thousand people, provided by the major parties, of paid, official election attendants for each election office. Dhlakama's demands in this context were met with almost no compromises. Nevertheless, during the negotiation phase there were military actions and attacks by armed RENAMO supporters, which resulted in conditions similar to civil war in a few areas.
Preliminary results of the elections
| candidate | Political party | be right | % 2014 | % 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filipe Nyusi | FRELIMO | 2,778,497 | 57.03 | ( 75.01% for Armando Guebuza ) | |
| Afonso Dhlakama | RENAMO | 1,783,382 | 36.61 | 16.41% | |
| Daviz Simango | MDM | 309.925 | 6.36 | 8.59% | |
| invalid / blank ballot papers | 461.861 | - | |||
| Total | 5,333,665 | 100 | |||
| Registered voters / turnout | 10,964,978 | 48.64 | |||
| Source: Mozambique News Agency | |||||
Irregularities during the elections
There were numerous indications of irregularities during the election, in particular of the "ballot box plugging", which was also widespread in earlier elections, i.e. the illegal filling of ballot boxes with mass ballot papers marked by individuals in the sense of a certain candidate, which in some cases led to absurdly high voter turnouts ( in one case of over 100%) and unbelievably high voting results of a candidate. Such fraudulent elections were in the absolute majority of cases for the FRELIMO candidate. Afonso Dhlakama then called for negotiations with the ruling FRELIMO party because he saw himself cheated out of an election victory.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/National_Elections_64-19october2014_Dhaklama_wants_unity_govt.pdf National Elections 2014 newsletters 64, October 19, 2014
- ↑ http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/National_Elections_72-24october2014_turnout_and_ballot-box_stuffing.pdf National_Elections 72, from October 24, 2014
- ↑ http://www.open.ac.uk/technology/mozambique/sites/www.open.ac.uk.technology.mozambique/files/files/National_Elections_63-18october2014_Dhlkama_wants_negotiations.pdf
Web links
National Elections 2014 newsletters by Joseph Hanlon (English)
