--- title: "Mozambique on Edge After Election Results Ignite Fresh Riots" description: "Tensions are high in Mozambique after riots broke out in the capital on Thursday night when authorities announced a resounding victory for the ruling party in an election the opposition said was rigged." type: "NewsArticle" publisher: "Daily Maverick" site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za" section: "Newsdeck" author: "Bloomberg" author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/bloomberg/" canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-10-25-mozambique-on-edge-after-election-results-ignite-fresh-riots/" published: "2024-10-25T17:29:52" updated: "2024-10-25T17:29:53" lang: "en-ZA" word_count: 672 --- # Mozambique on Edge After Election Results Ignite Fresh Riots > Tensions are high in Mozambique after riots broke out in the capital on Thursday night when authorities announced a resounding victory for the ruling party in an election the opposition said was rigged. By Bloomberg · Published 25 October 2024, 19:29 SAST · Updated 25 October 2024, 19:29 SAST ## Key points - In a country where three-quarters of the population scrape by on less than $2.15 a day, Mozambique's youth have taken to the streets in protest of a disputed election, leaving the capital eerily deserted and the government scrambling to quell a brewing revolution—because when you have nothing to lose, a little chaos can feel like a bold investment. - Violent protests in Mozambique led to the temporary closure of the Ressano Garcia border crossing and left Maputo's streets largely deserted. - The unrest, sparked by disputed election results, has resulted in 371 arrests and raised concerns over the nation’s economic stability. - Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane has called for continued demonstrations, while the ruling party, Frelimo, solidified its parliamentary control amid allegations of electoral fraud. - With a median age of 17 and high youth unemployment, the protests reflect deep-seated frustrations over poverty and lack of opportunity in one of the world's least-developed nations. ## Content Violent protests caused the temporary closure of the main land crossing with South Africa at Ressano Garcia, state-owned Agência de Informação de Moçambique reported. By mid-morning Friday, makeshift barriers still blocked one of the main roads in Maputo, the capital, it said. The demonstrations have sent the nation’s dollar bonds plunging and raised questions about how the election dispute will end. Mozambique is home to a $20 billion natural gas export plant that TotalEnergies SE plans, which an insurgency in the north of the country has already delayed for years. Maputo’s streets were still deserted on Friday afternoon, said Adriano Nuvunga, director of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights. “It’s empty, totally empty,” he said, adding he expects young people will continue with their demonstrations, but with less intensity relative to Thursday. Mozambique has never seen post-election violence of that magnitude, he said. “These young people are unemployed,” Nuvunga said by phone. “They have nothing to lose.” The southeast African nation, where the median age is about 17, is one of the world’s least-developed. Almost three-quarters of its 35 million people live on less than $2.15 per day, according to the World Bank. One in three young people aren’t working or studying, government data shows. Authorities arrested 371 people as a result of the protests since Thursday, Portuguese news agency Lusa cited a police spokesman as having said Friday. Venâncio Mondlane, the charismatic opposition leader who was the runner-up in the presidential election, called for national strike and demonstrations on Thursday and Friday. He urged supporters to protest peacefully, but said they had the right to defend themselves against the police. Daniel Chapo, the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front’s candidate, on Thursday evening discouraged people from joining protests and said the country needed peace to develop. | Read More on Mozambique’s Election: | | --- | | [Mozambique’s Ruling Party Wins Vote Tainted by Fraud Claims](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-24/mozambique-s-ruling-party-wins-vote-tainted-by-fraud-allegations)[Talk of Revolution Shakes Gas-Rich Mozambique: Balance of Power](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-10-23/talk-of-revolution-shakes-gas-rich-mozambique)[Slain Lawyer’s Funeral May Become New Flash Point for Mozambique](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-10-21/mozambique-police-use-teargas-to-disperse-protesters-in-capital) | Mondlane won 20% of the vote compared with Chapo’s 71%, according to the official results that the opposition dismissed as fraudulent. Numerous election observers have flagged a raft of irregularities, including ballot-box stuffing and altering the tallies. Frelimo, as the governing party is known, increased its control of parliament to 195 seats out of 250. For the first time since multi-party elections started in 1994, Mozambique has a new main opposition party. The Mozambique National Resistance, or Renamo, saw its support collapse. Its presidential candidate, Ossufo Momade, got less than 6% of the vote, while the party emerged with only 20 seats in parliament. Podemos, the party backing Mondlane, got 31. Renamo’s popularity plunged since the death of its long-time leader Afonso Dhlakama in 2018. He’d led the party when it was a rebel group that waged a civil war against Frelimo that left about a million people dead before a peace deal in 1992. [Sign up here for the twice-weekly Next Africa newsletter](https://www.bloomberg.com/account/newsletters/next-africa?sref=OOcVchU0) Mondlane, who has a major following on social media, quit Renamo earlier this year after it blocked him from challenging Momade’s leadership. The Podemos-backed leader “might see mass mobilization now as a good way to boost his profile even further,” Louw Nel, analyst at Oxford Economics Africa, said in a note late Thursday. “Chapo will need to reach across the aisle, and quickly,” to avoid a repeat of the unrest that followed the municipal elections in Mozambique last year, he said. Mondlane drew large crowds of young people at campaign rallies, promising them a greater share of the nation’s natural resources. Mozambique has some of Africa’s biggest natural-gas reserves, but an Islamic State-backed insurgency has delayed the expected windfall. In a livestream on Facebook late on Thursday night, Mondlane again repudiated the election results that he called “totally absurd.” From an undisclosed location, he repeated calls for demonstrations on Friday, by which time the video had more than 1.5 million views. “The revolution has arrived,” he said, echoing words his former party’s rebel leader used. “The time has come.”