MAPUTO (Reuters) -Mozambique is seeking to prosecute the country’s main opposition leader, Venancio Mondlane, over civil unrest that followed a disputed election last year, a document presented to Mondlane by prosecutors showed.
Mondlane, who says President Daniel Chapo of the long-ruling Frelimo party won the election through vote-rigging, was summoned by prosecutors on Tuesday. He was shown the 40-page document laying out a series of accusations including that he incited the unrest.
An adviser to Mondlane shared the document with Reuters on Wednesday and said the opposition politician denied all the prosecutors’ accusations.
Prosecutors in the resource-rich Southern African country declined to comment.
The post-election protests, in which more than 300 people were killed, were the largest against Frelimo since independence from Portuguese colonial rule in 1975.
Frelimo denies allegations of electoral fraud, though Western observers say October’s vote was not free and fair.
There had been indications that Chapo and Mondlane were looking to build bridges, as the two politicians met for talks in March and again in May. Chapo also launched a “national dialogue” and invited Mondlane to serve on a presidential advisory body.
Louw Nel, a political analyst at Oxford Economics Africa, said attempts to prosecute Mondlane would “weigh on the political compromise Mozambique’s political actors reached in March”.
(Reporting by Manuel Mucari and Custodio Cossa; Additional reporting by Kopano Gumbi;Writing by Alexander Winning; Editing by Aidan Lewis)
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