Election campaign starts

Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano launched his ruling FRELIMO party’s election campaign on Tuesday by laying a wreath in memory of his predecessor, Samora Machel, who died in a plane crash in South Africa 13 years ago, media reports said.

Mozambicans will go to the polls on 3-4 December to elect a 250-member national assembly and a president in the second democratic elections since the country returned to peace in 1992 after 16 years of civil war.

Chissano is FRELIMO’s presidential candidate and will be opposed by Afonso Dhlakama of the former RENAMO rebel movement, who was also expected to start campaigning this week. A third presidential hopeful, Yaqub Sibindy, was disqualified on Monday after the Supreme Court rejected some of the 10,000 signatures required by law to back his candidacy.

While Chissano’s visibility and popularity is expected to bring him the votes to easily ward off Dhlakama’s challenge, his FRELIMO party faces a stiff challenge from RENAMO which has formed a coalition with 10 smaller parties in a formation called RENAMO-Electoral Union.

In the 1994 elections, Chissano polled more than 53 percent of the vote as opposed to Dhlakama’s 33 percent. FRELIMO secured 129 seats against RENAMO’s 112. Nine seats went to a coalition called the Democratic Union.