Maputo, Jan 15 (EFE).- At least seven people were killed by police repression in Mozambique on Wednesday as the country’s new president Daniel Chapo was sworn in, after winning the Oct. 9 elections, which results have been rejected by the opposition, sparking massive protests, a local NGO reported.
“It should have been a day of celebration, but the demonstrations have taken on new proportions, and we have more deaths in Maputo (the capital) and Nampula (in the north),” denounced the DECIDE electoral platform on X.
The inauguration took place under tight security, police used live ammunition to disperse dozens of people who tried to set up barricades with burning tires to protest around Maputo’s Independence Square, where the ceremony took place.
The new deaths rose the deathtoll to 307 since protests started last October against alleged electoral fraud in the Oct. 9 elections, according to the NGO’s count.
Chapo becomes the country’s fifth president. Only two heads of state (South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Guinea-Bissau’s Umaro Sissoco Embaló) attended the solemn ceremony, although some fifteen countries sent other representatives.
During his inauguration speech, which lasted more than 45 minutes, Chapo promised to prioritize “social and political stability” and made several ambitious reform pledges related to those already proposed by opposition parties.
On Monday, the president was sworn in after the 10th term of the Mozambican parliament began amid a controversial session marked by a boycott by two opposition parties that do not recognize the results of the elections (only 210 of the 250 elected deputies were sworn in).
On the same day, the opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, the main organizer of the protests, launched a general strike.
Mondlane ran as an independent candidate, initially with the support of what is now the main opposition party, the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (PODEMOS).
According to the results announced by the Constitutional Council on Dec. 23, Chapo won 65.17% of the vote, while Mondlane came in second with 24.19%.
The results keep FRELIMO in power, which has held the presidency since independence from Portugal in 1975. EFE
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