Guebuza declared landslide polls winner

MAPUTO – Mozambique’s President Armando Guebuza was declared the ‘landslide’ winner of last week’s polls by two election monitoring groups yesterday.

Frelimo, Mozambique’s ruling party since independence in 1975, had 71 per cent of the vote with 89 per cent of polling stations reporting, said the Center for Public Integrity and the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa.Guebuza was winning the presidential race comfortably with 76 per cent of the presidential vote, based on an analysis of provisional returns showing a huge victory for the leader who is seeking a second and final term.’Guebuza landslide,’ the two organisations declared in their regular election newsletter.The race for second place – closely watched in the wake of a recent opposition split – was being won by long-time opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, who had claimed 15 per cent of the vote.Daviz Simango, founder of the breakaway Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), was in third place with 9 per cent.Final results are expected by November 12, after election officials have tabulated province-level results and reviewed rejected ballots.Last Wednesday’s vote was Mozambique’s fourth national poll since a 16-year civil war between Renamo and the Frelimo government ended in the establishment of multi-party democracy in 1994. – Nampa-AFP