Mozambique election protests resume after leaders’ meeting flops

Roads in Maputo, the capital, were blocked and public transport interrupted after Venâncio Mondlane urged supporters to begin a fresh round of protests starting Wednesday.

Mozambique faces three more days of protests called by an opposition leader, after he skipped a meeting with the other candidates in last month’s disputed presidential election.

Roads in Maputo, the capital, were blocked and public transport interrupted after Venâncio Mondlane urged supporters to begin a fresh round of protests starting Wednesday. He suggested people to park their cars on main roads to turn them into “parking lots” throughout the day.

The demonstrations, which began October 21, have rocked the southeast African nation that’s enduring its most bitterly disputed election since the advent of democracy in 1994.

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They show Mondlane continues to rally support that many observers expected would fizzle out. The continued disruption is hitting already strained state finances and risks further delaying a $20 billion natural gas-export project led by TotalEnergies SE.

“It’s unprecedented,” Gustavo Plácido, an analyst at Horizon Engage in Lisbon, said by phone Wednesday. “I’m surprised for how long they’ve been able to sustain the protests.”

Outgoing President Filipe Nyusi had called the presidential candidates to a meeting at the presidency on Tuesday to discuss the post-election situation. Mondlane, who fled the country October 21 and requested to attend virtually, said he’d not heard back regarding an agenda he’d proposed last week for the gathering.

The two other opposition candidates and the ruling Frelimo party’s Daniel Chapo went to meet Nyusi, but agreed the talks couldn’t continue without Mondlane. According to the state-owned Mozambique Information Agency, the dialog broke down before it even started.

In a livestream on Tuesday that had 2.6 million views by the following morning, Mondlane also called on supporters to return to their cars at 3:30 pm local time to sing the national anthem before going home. People should continue to protest at night by banging pots and pans, he said.

Television pictures showed the Praça dos Combatentes bus station, a major public transit point in Maputo, taken over by people playing soccer in the normally busy street, with no public transport moving. Elsewhere in the city and neighboring Matola, protesters blocked roads.

Official results showed the ruling party won the election with more than 70%, extending its 49-year rule, which Mondlane rejected as fraudulent.

Protests began after unknown assailants shot his lawyer dead, and intensified after the electoral commission announced the vote outcome on October 24. The Constitutional Council has yet to validate the final result, which it anticipates doing by December 23.

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