With the official results of last week’s general election now in from all 11 of Mozambique’s provincial constituencies, it is clear that Filipe Nyusi, the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party, has won with around 57 per cent of the vote – considerably less than the over 60 per cent predicted at the start of the vote tabulation.

Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, has won over 36 per cent of the vote. This is more than double the 16 per cent he won in the last presidential election in 2009. The third candidate, Daviz Simango, leader of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), trailed on 6.5 per cent, down from the nine per cent he won in 2009.

The sum of the 11 provincial results is as follows:

Filipe Nyusi (Frelimo) – 2,744,066 (57.14 per cent)

Afonso Dhlakama (Renamo) – 1,747,093 (36.38 per cent)

Daviz Simango (MDM) – 311,358 (6.48 per cent).

As for the parliamentary election, Frelimo too scored about 57 per cent, a sharp decline from its 75 per cent of 2009. Renamo took over a third of the vote, and the MDM slightly more than nine per cent. For the sake of convenience, the 27 minor parties who stood in the election have been omitted – none of them came anywhere near winning a parliamentary seat.

The sum of the 11 parliamentary results from the provinces is as follows (percentages refer to the sum of the vote of the three main parties):

Frelimo – 2,473,938 (57.06 per cent)

Renamo – 1,467,289 (33.84 per cent)

MDM – 394,458 (9.1 per cent)

Absent from these results are the two constituencies for Mozambican communities living abroad. However, only 88,820 voters were registered abroad, and it is already

known that both these seats went to Frelimo.

Hence, from calculations based on these figures, the composition of the new parliament is likely to be 142 seats for Frelimo, 89 for Renamo and 19 for the MDM. The composition of the current parliament is 191 seats for Frelimo, 51 for Renamo and eight for the MDM. Thus Frelimo is set to lose 49 seats, while Renamo gains 38 and the MDM gains 11.

In late 2013, Frelimo claimed more than four million members: but on 15 October less than 2.5 million people voted for the party, and 2.75 million voted for its presidential candidate. So either the Frelimo membership figures are exaggerated or around one and a half million Frelimo members failed to vote for their party.

The provincial results are not yet definitive, since they have not been confirmed by the National Elections Commission (CNE). Currently the CNE is undertaking the painfully slow task of re-classifying all the votes that were considered invalid at the polling stations.

On past experience, between 10 and 20 per cent of these votes will be rescued, with the CNE determining that the polling station staff were too strict, and that the voters concerned did indeed express a preference. This will alter the total votes for the three candidates and the three main parties, but not by very much.

Far more significant is the CNE’s decision to investigate all allegations of irregularities and fraud. Should the CNE decide to annul openly fraudulent results sheets which claim impossible turnouts of 90, 95 or even 100 per cent, this could make a material difference to the final result.