The police have detained two
members of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), in the town of
Boane, near Maputo, accused of
vandalising election campaign material of the ruling Frelimo Party.
According to the Frelimo
candidate for mayor of Boane, Jacinto Loureiro, and the party's spokesperson,
Matias Bila, the two were caught red-handed destroying propaganda material and
the case was immediately reported to the police.
The two were held at a Boane
police station for questioning, and were released on Tuesday morning. The
police have opened a case file against them, but they will await their trial in
freedom.
Under the law governing the
municipal elections, anyone found guilty of destroying election material of
their opponents is punished with a jail sentence of up to six months, and a
fine of between six and 12 times the monthly minimum wage. The lowest of the
current statutory minimum wages, for agricultural workers, is 2,500 meticais a
month. So the minimum fine for this offence would be 15,000 meticais - about
500 US dollars at current exchange rates.
Bila told AIM that on Sunday the
MDM members daubed a billboard bearing Loureiro's portrait with mud, and ripped
up smaller Frelimo posters. “We had to arrange buckets of water to clean up the
billboard”, he added. A similar incident happened in the central province of
Manica. According to a report in Tuesday's issue of the “Mozambique Political
Process Bulletin”, published by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians
for Africa) and the Mozambican anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity
(CIP), nine MDM members have been detained over the last three days for
destroying Frelimo posters.
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