Mozambique’s Renamo party on Saturday joined the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) party and its presidential candidate in rejecting the reported results of the October 15 elections showing incumbent President Filipe Nyusi with a landslide victory.

The latest results from The National Election Commission (CNE) and Mozambique’s Technical Secretariat for Election Administration (STAE) show Renamo candidate Ossufo Momade trailing Nyusi with just 14.4 percent of the vote, compared with Nyusi’s overwhelming 81 percent. The provisional results from Sala da Paz for the MDM candidate, Daviz Simango, place him in third with just 4.3 percent.

Both opposition parties warned that the peace deal negotiated in August may be at stake because of electoral violence and voting irregularities described as barbaric. MDM said the elections were “more violent and painful” than any the nation has ever organized before, and that its refusal to accept published results is because of their failure to reject the will of the people.

Renamo followed suit, explaining that “the magnitude of the fraud” makes it impossible to accept the election as legitimate and detailing a litany of polling irregularities.

Renamo leaders called for new elections and condemned the arrogance of Nyusi’s ruling Frelimo party, with which it has struggled for power for decades – and that history brought another warning from Renamo, which said it considers the electoral violence to be in violation of the newly minted peace agreement.

Image: Frelimo