Mozambique News Agency
AIM Reports
Maputo, 30 Oct (AIM) - With over a third of polling station results sheets now processed, the provisional count from Wednesday's general election, undertaken by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the Mozambican civil service, shows that the incumbent President, Armando Guebuza, has an unassailable lead over his two opponents, Afonso Dhlakama, leader of Renamo, and Daviz Simango, mayor of Beira, and leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
The latest STAE results also show that excited media claims that Simango was coming second were the result of a statistical artifact: the first results published by STAE on Thursday were heavily biased towards parts of the country where Simango was doing well - his home province of Sofala, and southern Mozambique.
But as more results come in from north of the Zambezi, it is clear that Dhlakama will overtake Simango, and will maintain his position as leader of the opposition, even though his vote has collapsed when compared with the last elections, in 2004.
The national results for the presidential election given by STAE on Friday afternoon, from 4,593 of the 12,595 stations inside Mozambique (there are a further 99 outside the country), were as follows:
Daviz Simango (MDM): 188,613 (12 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 1,239,055 (77 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 180,820 (11 per cent)
It now looks certain that Guebuza will win with around 75 per cent and at least three million votes. The polling station results given over Radio Mozambique suggest that Dhlakama will end up with around 15 per cent, and Simango will take the other ten per cent. Since Simango's party, the MDM, has only existed since March, ten per cent is rather impressive, and certainly provides a base for him to build on.
The STAE count is almost complete in Maputo city where 788 of the 791 polling stations have been processed. The results are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 51,294 (15 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 275,864 (80 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 16,385 (5 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 263,819 (76.6 per cent)
Renamo: 18,902 (5 per cent)
MDM: 56,136 (16.3 per cent).
80 per cent is certainly a convincing victory - but it is a lower margin of victory than Guebuza obtained in the capital in 2004, when he won 85 per cent. And in the election for mayor of Maputo last year, Frelimo candidate David Simango (no relation of Daviz) won almost 86 per cent.
It thus seems that Simango and the MDM have not only taken votes from Renamo, but have become a refuge for some voters who opted for Frelimo in the past merely because they could not stand Dhlakama.
In Maputo province, Guebuza's margin of victory is larger, and Simango has more than twice as many votes as Dhlakama. With 512 out of 848 polling stations process (60.38 per cent), the results are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 24,561 (10 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 201,422 (85 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 10,642 (4 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 171,262 (89 per cent)
Renamo: 13,215 (6.9 per cent)
In Gaza, Frelimo has always been the hegemonic party, so Guebuza's figure of over 95 per cent is not a great surprise. The results from 414 of the 882 polling stations (46.9 per cent) are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 4,924 (3 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 172,816 (97 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 1,329 (1 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 152,057 (98 per cent)
Renamo: 1,513 (1 per cent)
In Inhambane, the overall picture is similar. The results from 331 of the 868 polling stations (38.1 per cent) are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 9,269 (9 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 89,299 (84 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 7,128 (7 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 84,825 (82.5 per cent)
Renamo: 7,764 (7.6 per cent)
MDM: 6,294 (6.1 per cent).
In Sofala, the home province of both Simango and Dhlakama, Guebuza still has over half of the votes. The results, from 354 of the 962 polling stations (36.8 per cent) are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 59,046 (34 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 91,128 (52 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 25,934 (15 per cent)
Parliamentary election (from 482 polling stations - 50.1 per cent)
Frelimo: 89,063 (51 per cent)
Renamo: 21,901 (13 per cent)
MDM: 60,402 (34.5 per cent).
From the neighbouring province of Manica, STAE has not processed any further results sheets, and so the numbers remain as they were on Thursday night:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 5,149 (12 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 29,980 (72 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 6,409 (15 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 29,068 (75.5 per cent)
Renamo: 8,011 (20.8 per cent)
With twice as many polling stations accounted for from Zambezia province than were included in STAE's Thursday count, Dhlakama's standing has improved somewhat, and Guebuza's has deteriorated - but Guebuza still has over 60 per cent of the vote. The results, from 703 of the 2,064 polling stations (34.1 per cent) are;
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 16,126 (9 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 116,831 (62 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 56,744 (30 per cent)
Parliamentary election (only 656 polling stations)
Frelimo: 106,140 (62 per cent)
Renamo: 55,570 (33 per cent)
A similar rise in Dhlakama's vote and fall in Guebuza's can be observed in Nampula, when the Friday figures are compared with Thursday's. But Guebuza still retains an enormous lead. With 516 of the 2,156 polling stations processed (23.9 per cent), the results are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 8,460 (6 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 107,097 (72 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 32,256 (22 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 103,551 (73 per cent)
Renamo: 31,613 (22 per cent)
In the western province of Tete, only 101 of the 1,207 polling stations have been processed (8.37 per cent). They gave the following results:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 1,652 (4 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 36,601 (90 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 2,333 (6 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 37,114 (93 per cent)
Renamo: 2,516 (6 per cent)
In the northern province of Cabo Delgado, a surprise in the latest STAE figures is that one of the minor parties, the PDD (Party of Peace, Development and Democracy), has done well enough to win one or two seats in parliament. In its reports to date on the results, AIM has left out of the figures the minor parties who stand no chance of entering parliament. But we may have to revise that judgment, at least as far as the PDD in Cabo Delgado is concerned. The PDD was set up by Raul Domingos, the former head of the Renamo parliamentary group, who was expelled from Renamo in 2000. The PDD came third in the 2004 election, but with only two per cent of the national vote. (An alternative explanation, of course, is that STAE has made a mistake that will later be corrected.)
The Cabo Delgado figures, from 362 of the 1,138 polling stations (31.8 per cent) are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 5,220 (5 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 80,443 (81 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 13,253 (13 per cent)
Parliamentary election
Frelimo: 74,512 (76.7 per cent)
Renamo: 11,429 (11.8 per cent)
PDD: 8,270 (8.51 per cent).
Finally, from Niassa province in the far north, the STAE figures from 271 of the 832 polling stations (32.6 per cent) are:
Presidential election
Daviz Simango (MDM): 2,912 (6 per cent)
Armando Guebuza (Frelimo): 37,574 (78 per cent)
Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo): 7,957 (16 per cent)
Parliamentary election (263 polling stations)
Frelimo: 31,415 (81.7 per cent)
Renamo: 5,563 (14 per cent)
MDM: 33 (0.09 per cent).
(This figure for the MDM in Niassa is obviously a mistake. It would mean that in at least 230 polling stations the MDM did not pick up a single vote. This would be possible for a tiny party which nobody has ever heard of, but not for a national force, whose local leader, Maria Moreno, was until recently leader of the Renamo parliamentary group. In any case, the polling station results from Niassa broadcast by Radio Mozambique make it clear that the MDM has many more than 33 votes).