By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The International Relations Minister Ronald Lamola has dismissed suggestions that South Africa is protecting Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo.
Tensions escalated in Mozambique last week as demonstrators took to the streets of Maputo.
At least 40 people have died in the violence that erupted following the announcement of Daniel Chapo, the president-elect from the Frelimo party.
Mozambican opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane called for fresh protests and encouraged supporters to target trade routes with neighboring South African and Zimbabwe.
The fiery former lawmaker, who rejects the outcome of the 9 October ballot as fraudulent, urged truck drivers plying the routes to the Beira port in the centre of the country and Maputo port in the south to blockade them for three days, starting Wednesday.
The call ratchets up risks to the southeast African nation’s economy, which is already straining under weeks of turmoil since the vote.
The department of international relations a week ago issued a travel warning on Mozambique, and on Tuesday Lamola said it was continuing to gauge the situation to advise South Africans accordingly.
He said South Africa was naturally concerned that conflict in any neighbouring state would spill over to its territory.
“There will be spillover to South Africa. Hence we continue to maintain the line of engagement with our Mozambican counterparts, and with the process that SADC [Southern African Development Community] is undertaking.”
The situation in Mozambique will be discussed at the extraordinary summit of the SADC Extraordinary Organ Troika in Harare next week. The summit will be preceded by meetings of ministers and senior officials, which start on Friday.
Lamola said South Africa considered Mozambique’s Constitutional Council the lawful final arbiter on objections to the outcome of the election and awaited its decision.
So at the end that will be the body entrusted by Mozambican laws to pronounce on the outcomes of the elections and we will then be able to take it from there. So we call for all parties to allow the court to consider and make a final determination.”
Lamola said it was common practice to congratulate election winners after the release of preliminary results.
“We know when congratulations are issued. It is not something unique or unusual that South Africa has done with the outcome of the Mozambican elections. Immediately after the preliminary results … that is the norm.
“So we have not gone out of the way to protect our friends from Frelimo, as is being insinuated. We have just stuck to the process. We can’t not do what is the norm because we will be seen to protect our friends,” he said.
Frelimo has governed Mozambique since independence in 1975 and its ties with the African National Congress (ANC) stretch back decades, when the latter was a liberation movement fighting apartheid.