Mozambique holds a pivotal election today, with at least 17 million citizens expected to cast their votes for a new President, Governors, and Members of Parliament.

The results of this crucial election are anticipated to be announced within two weeks.

The ruling party, the  Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) has maintained its grip on power since the country gained independence from Portugal over 50 years ago. Frelimo’s candidate, Daniel Chapo, 47, is poised to succeed Filipe Nyusi, the current President who is stepping down after two terms in office.

Chapo faces strong competition from Ossufo Momade, 63, the candidate for the main opposition party, Renamo.

Momade’s candidacy is particularly significant as he represents a growing demand for change among voters.

Another contender in the race is Venancio Mondlane, 50, who previously lost a mayoral race in 2023 while representing Renamo. Mondlane has alleged that widespread electoral fraud influenced the results of that election.

As voters head to the polls, the atmosphere is charged with anticipation and a desire for change. The outcome of this election could mark a significant shift in Mozambique’s political landscape, with citizens hoping for progress in governance and public service delivery.

Mozambican agriculture authorities have banned the importation of chickens from a Polish supplier SuperDrob after the European Food Security Authority issued a warning about the presence of salmonella in their frozen chickens.

Salmonella can cause diarrhoea, stomach cramps, vomiting and fever. The symptoms usually appear 12 to 36 hours after eating contaminated food and most people recover without treatment.

Mozambique’s ministry of agriculture issued a statement saying:

“The importation of chickens and their derivatives from Poland is temporarily banned. The agriculture ministry warns that the ban does not cover products that are already being transported to Mozambique.”

The statement added that chickens that have already have arrived in the country have to be analysed before their distribution.

SuperDrob have not yet commented on the case.

Source: BBC Africa

Mozambique’s largest opposition party Renamo has lost its bid to annul last month’s election results after the country’s top court threw out its challenge, according to a court judgement seen on Friday.
Renamo, the rebel group turned opposition party, lodged an application after it lost the October 15 election to the long-ruling Frelimo party.

It accused the government of “massive electoral fraud” and of using violence and intimidation on voting day in a breach of a peace deal between the two parties who once fought a civil war.

But the Constitutional Court, in a judgement dated November 11 but seen on its website on Friday, rejected the application on grounds that the party “did not submit enough evidence to sustain it’s complaint”.

Last week the European Union cast doubt on the credibility of the ruling party’s victory, saying its observers detected a litany of “irregularities and malpractices” and called on authorities to clarify them.

Mozambican civil society and international observers had already flagged numerous alleged attempts to stuff ballot boxes and chase away election monitors, as well as hundreds of thousands of so-called “ghost voters” on the electoral roll.

Incumbent President Filipe Nyusi won a new five-year term after his Frelimo party secured 73% of the votes cast.

The election posed a major challenge to the country’s already fragile peace agreement between Frelimo and Renamo who fought a civil war from 1975-1992 that left one million dead.M

While the political campaigns in Mozambique are in full swing, the country has been struggling to clear the informational space from some widely-spread fake materials. The citizens have faced an outbreak of false information with a general aim to bring unrest among the population, similar to the pre-election weeks in South Africa.

In the run-up to the general elections scheduled for next Tuesday, a message has emerged in WhatsApp messenger chats claiming the police in Durban, SA, had seized four trucks with fabricated voting ballots destined for Mozambique.

The attached photos show a number of regular-looking heavy-duty vehicles with sealed bodywork doors but without any indication of what is behind them.

Several independent sources related to the trucking industry in the Southern Africa told the local press that the markings on the vehicles were actually showing that the cargo was going to Mozambique.

The SAPS department in Durban has also made a statement confirming their members have been investigating the case after an alert was received from their Mozambican counterparts. In an interview, the officers refuted the allegations of an illegal transportation saying no violations had been found and the trucks were carrying just basic household chemicals and various other products meant for cleaning.

The observers from the neighboring to Mozambique states have already arrived in the country to ensure the election process would be fully free and fair, hence the cases of ballot-box stuffing and other offences should be kept to a minimum.

According to the latest surveys, President Filipe Nyusi is leading in the election race with a rating of over 60%.

Moçambique plane came off the runway on landing at Maputo International Airport on Monday, but no injuries resulted among the 26 passengers and four crew, LAM’s managing director, João Pó Jorge said.

LAM Mocambique Embraer ERJ-145 (C9-MEH, built 2000) operating on flight #TM165 ran off the end of runway 05 on landing at Maputo Intl Airport (FQMA) ending up in bushes. Strong winds prevailed at the time. All 29 pax+crew escaped unscathed. @AllexandreMZhttps://t.co/Sj0AXQZtVb pic.twitter.com/uiBVaX8BlV

— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) October 1, 2019

Image: @JacdecNew

The Embraer 145 operated by MEX-Mozambique Expresso, a subsidiary of national flag carrier LAM, had landed after completing a domestic flight from Nacala, in the north of the country, that included a stop in the city of Beira.

According to Jorge, indications that it came off the runway because of the strong crosswinds at the time of landing, at 4.50 p.m. (3.50 p.m. Lisbon time).

The aircraft ended up on the terrain alongside the runway, eventually coming to a halt in an area of bushes, where airport emergency vehicles rushed to its aid.

Preliminary data point to slight damage to the aircraft, Jorge said.

“There are no wounded,” he stressed, adding that “passengers and crew disembarked safely and were transported by bus” to the terminal building.

Operations are continuing normally at Maputo International Airport, he said.

On September 8, during a political rally in Nsanje, President Peter Mutharika told the gathering that his government is in talks with Mozambique over Nsanje Inland Port a development described as a “Closed affair” by the Mozambican government.

While holding a political rally Nsanje on 8 September, President Peter Mutharika told the gathering that Malawi was in talks with the neighboring country over the port, and that he is awaiting the endorsement of the Government of Mozambique to resume the construction project of the port.

“As soon as we get the permit, my government will immediately resume building the missing infrastructure,” Mutharika told the gathering.

Contrary to what President Peter Mutharika said, Head of the Department of Bilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Transport and Communications in that country has made it blunt: discussion of the project to build the Nsanje inland port on the Chire River is a “closed affair”, according to Jornal Noticias of Mozambique.

But according to Jornal Noticias, the Head of the Department of Bilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Horácio Parquinio, said yesterday that Mozambique is not in talks and has nothing further to talk to Malawi about the port of Nsanje.

The online publication reports that Parquinio recalled that, in the recent past, in-depth environmental feasibility studies have been carried out which did not recommend the navigability of the Zambezi River.

“At a recent meeting on the Nacala Corridor project, they wanted to bring the issue of the port of Nsanje to the table and we, the Mozambican delegation, made it clear that this was no longer a matter for discussion and the issue was taken off the agenda,” he recalled.

The Nsanje port project, devised by the late Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, failed after the Mozambican government demanded a comprehensive environmental impact assessment prior to implementation.

Without agreement with the Mozambican side, Bingu wa Mutharika inaugurated the port on 23 October 2010, the terminal of the ambitious Shire-Zambezi waterway, which connects Malawi to the Port of Chinde in Mozambique.

The waterway was expected to reduce transportation costs and the estimated annual import bill for Malawi, estimated at about US $ 175 million, according to a 2005 study.

In the 2014 election campaign, Mutharika promised to open the port the same day he swore as president if he won the election.

Parquinio said, “It should also be recalled that in the past the port project has plunged both countries into a diplomatic crisis due to Malawi’s attempt to navigate the Zambezi and Chire rivers to the Nsanje river port without proper authorization from the Mozambican authorities.”

Source: Zodiak Online

South African soldiers and Mozambique police have been involved in a shooting incident along the border in KwaZulu-Natal, prompting a board of inquiry into the matter.

“The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) can confirm that a shooting incident occurred between the South African soldiers and Mozambican Border Police in the area of Ndumo, east of Farazella along the RSA-Mozambique border on Sunday, 16 June 2019 at about 16:00,” said a terse statement issued by the SA department of defence on Monday.

“Our soldiers were conducting routine patrol as part of borderline protection when this incident occurred. Details around this incident are still sketchy and reasons for the shooting are not yet known. A Board of Inquiry will be convened to determine causes of the incident.”

Source : Citizen

Tens of thousands of people in the far north of Mozambique are bracing for violent flooding as torrential rain pushes up water levels, after the death and devastation wrought by Cyclone Kenneth.

The first floods have already been seen in some parts of Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado province, as well as in surrounding areas, lashed by heavy rain since daybreak, AFP journalists reported.

Fields on the outskirts of the city that had been lush green just a day earlier were now brown with floodwater.

We have grave fears for the thousands of families currently taking shelter under the wreckage of their homes. They urgently need food, water and shelter to survive the coming days

“It’s been raining hard since Sunday morning,” said Deborah Nguyen, spokeswoman for the UN World Food Programme. “Violent flooding is expected in and around Pemba.

“We are very worried because, according to the forecasts, heavy rain is expected for the next four days,” she added.

“We expect the rainfall to be twice as much as that which accompanied Cyclone Idai that hit the city of Beira last month.”

Idai hit central Mozambique six weeks ago and communities in that region are still reeling from floods that swept away homes, roads and bridges, leaving around 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands without shelter.

This time, around 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) further north, the city of Pemba and its 400,000 inhabitants face similar dangers.

“Houses started to collapse in Natite neighbourhood, according to the rescue team operating there,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a tweet on Sunday.

“We are unfortunately expecting devastating floods as consequence of #CycloneKenneth’.”

According to figures provided by the Mozambique authorities to NGOs, around 200,000 people in Pemba are in danger.

In the small village of Mieze, around 20 kilometres to the south west, dozens of people gathered hoping to be rescued by boat.

“We are worried about the floods worsening because we don’t know where they will go,” Filomeno Sira, 45, whose home is one kilometre from the growing Mieze floodplain, told the Press

“The government said we have to go to the top of the hill if the water continues to rise -— and we’ll go. We are scared because we don’t know.”

According to a preliminary toll published Sunday by the National Institute of Disaster Management (INGC), five people have died, more than 23,000 people are without shelter and nearly 35,000 homes have been either partly or completely destroyed.

A number of UN agencies have deployed response teams in Pemba.

To the north of the provincial capital, the town of Macomia was counting the cost of the damage on Sunday, with homes and businesses destroyed, roofs torn off, trees and electric pylons uprooted.

The World Food Programme has started distributing food rations to stranded people, but has been forced to suspend operations to the most isolated areas where roads have been cut off. A helicopter was expected to arrive in Pemba to resume operations as quickly as possible.

Source : AFP

Mozambique started three days of national mourning on Wednesday after a powerful cyclone and flooding killed hundreds of people and left a trail of destruction across swathes of southeast Africa.

Cyclone Idai hit Mozambique’s port city of Beira with winds of up to 170 kph (105 mph) on Thursday last week, then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings and putting the lives of millions of people at risk.

Drone footage showed residents of a shantytown at the port still picking through wreckage days after the storm hit and trying to drag plastic sheeting over their ruined homes.

“Great floods have sowed mourning and devastation in various areas of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi,” Pope Francis said on Wednesday. “I express my pain and closeness to those dear people.”

Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi said a day earlier that the cyclone had killed more than 200 people in his country but rescuers were still discovering more bodies.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe the official death count stands at 98 but is likely to grow as hundreds are still missing.

In the worst-hit eastern parts of Zimbabwe, grieving families rushed to bury their dead because the cyclone has knocked out power supplies and stopped mortuaries from functioning.

Source : REUTERS

In Mozambique, three senior officials of Renamo, the largest opposition party and former rebel movement, have been officially appointed to key command posts in the state army.

The Ministry of Defence has welcomed this initiative as a step towards a comprehensive peace.

“Our mission should focus on territorial defence and the integrity of the country’s sovereignty and internal cohesion.” Atanasio Salvador,Minister of Defence of Mozambique.

Generals of Renamo (Mozambique’s Democratic Renewal) have been appointed as Director of Operations, Director of Military Information and Director of Communications.

Renamo waged a brutal 16-year civil war against the government of Frelimo (Mozambique Liberation Front), which killed close to a million people before the fighting ended in 1992. Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975.

Peace talks began in December 2016 when the Renamo declared a unilateral truce to end the conflict that had resumed in 2013.

China’s massive investment on the continent continues with the opening of Africa’s longest suspension bridge in Maputo, Mozambique. Among other improvements, the 3km-long bridge will reduce travel time between Maputo and KwaZulu-Natal from six hours to 90 minutes. But it comes at a cost to locals.

Mozambique has officially opened the Maputo-Katembe Bridge, a 3km-long (3 041 metres) suspension bridge that extends for 680 metres over Maputo Bay and connects the Mozambican capital of Maputo on the northern bank with Katembe on the southern bank. The twin-tower bridge also straddles the Indian Ocean inlet of Espirito Santo estuary.

The bridge breaks the record as the longest suspension bridge in Africa previously held by the Matadi Bridge in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Its inception was part of an improved transportation network plan, as visualised by former president of Mozambique, Samora Machel. Its construction stalled due to civil unrest in the country and, although revived in 2008, fell through again until China’s intervention in 2011.

After a long drawn-out settlement, China went on to channel US$785 million into the construction of the Maputo-Katembe Bridge over four years under the management of the China Road and Bridge Corporation. The loan agreements towards the financing of the project – like many others across Africa – are not public knowledge.

Speaking at the launch of the bridge, KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs is quoted by The South African website as saying, “The road will see the travel time between Maputo and Kosi Bay, KwaZulu-Natal’s east coast border post, drastically reduced: from six hours to 90 minutes. This is a huge achievement. It will boost trade and tourism between South Africa and Mozambique.”

Like the Source of the Nile Bridge in Uganda, which comes at a cost to locals because Boda bodas, the motorcycles commonly used by locals to transport just about anything, are forbidden from using it, the Maputo-Katembe Bridge will cost locals an exorbitant US$2.60 to cross.

Source : This Is Africa

Police have confirmed that a Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) biometric voters registration machine was found in Vale Logistics train in Mozambique.

Police spokesperson James Kadadzera confirmed that the kit went missing and has been recovered. Meanwhile, investigations have been opened into the matter.