Victory for Chissano and ruling FRELIMO party

Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE) announced on Wednesday that President Joaquim Chissano and his ruling FRELIMO party had won the country's presidential and parliamentary elections held earlier this month. Chissano was re-elected president of Mozambique, winning 52.29 percent of the vote. His only opponent in the presidential race, Afonso Dhlakama, leader of former rebel movement RENAMO, garnered 47.71 percent of the votes. In the parliamentary race, the official results showed Chissano's FRELIMO party had retained its majority in the 250 seat parliament by winning 133 seats. RENAMO took 117 seats. Under the electoral law in Mozambique the CNE was bound to announce the results by midnight on Monday. However, the commission delayed the announcement so that officials of all parties could verify the final outcome. Voting in Mozambique's presidential and parliamentary elections on 3 and 4 December was extended for a day because of heavy rains in the north of the country. Originally 3 and 4 December had been promulgated as the official voting days. The commission said that about 75 percent of the country's 7.1 million registered voters cast their ballots. Mozambique is estimated to have a population of about 16.5 million people. According to Mozambican media reports, RENAMO boycotted Wednesday's ceremony the official results were announced. In recent days the opposition group has alleged that there had been vote tampering. But international and local observers declared the election "free and fair" and praised Mozambicans for the way they conducted themselves during the elections. Former US president Jimmy Carter, who led a 50-member monitoring team from his Carter Centre, said the people of Mozambique had "demonstrated a commitment to freedom, to peace and to democracy." In the country's first multi-party elections in 1994, FRELIMO won 129 seats and RENAMO 112. The Democratic Union, made up of three smaller parties and which has no representation in the new parliament, had nine seats. The 1994 elections brought an end to a brutal 15 year civil war in which an estimated 60,000 people lost their lives.