(Bloomberg) -- Mozambique opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane called for a two-day strike to “paralyze” activity in the southeast African nation following the Oct. 9 presidential elections that he called fraudulent.
The electoral authorities have to announce the results by Thursday, and nobody should go to work on that day and on Friday, Mondlane said in a livestream Tuesday. He also called for citizens to hold peaceful demonstrations against kidnappings and allegations of police using live bullets against protesters.
Tensions in the gas-rich nation are high following the elections that are tainted by widespread allegations of fraud. Observers from the European Union on Tuesday said they’d found “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level.”
Unidentified gunmen murdered two senior opposition officials at the weekend, including Mondlane’s lawyer, further inflaming tensions. Police on Monday used teargas to break up a protest march in Maputo, the capital, before it could start. They then fired tear gas directly at Mondlane as he addressed journalists in the street nearby.
In the presidential election, Mondlane is trailing ruling-party candidate Daniel Chapo by a wide margin, according to the provisional tallies that the opposition disputes as fraudulent. Chapo’s party, the Mozambique Liberation Front, has been in power since independence almost five decades ago.
Electoral authorities have said aggrieved parties should present evidence to the courts of electoral wrongdoing.
(Updates with EU observers’ findings in third paragraph.)
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