The mayor of Quelimane, Manuel de Araújo, warned on Thursday that the scale of electoral fraud in the October 11 municipal elections could plunge the country into political tension and accused the ruling party of "spewing poison" to incite Mozambique into a new war.

Mozambican political analysts suggest that the only appeaser of the tension will be the Constitutional Council (CC), which has begun to consider the opposition's complaints about fraud.

Manuel de Araújo, who returned to Quelimane yesterday after a diplomatic tour of Europe to press for justice in the elections, said that the country is marching towards an unfortunate political tension, insisting that the fraud in the elections is intended to push the country towards war.

"We are living through unfortunate times. Frelimo is confronting the Mozambican people, it's confronting Renamo and it's spewing poison all over the country, because they want war," said Manuel de Araújo, applauded by thousands of supporters and sympathizers present at a rally.

For the mayor of Mozambique's fourth largest city, quoted by VOA, the fight to reverse the current post-election political tension must continue in the cities, with marches to repudiate the election results and diplomacy with the diplomatic representations in the country.

"Enough is enough, it's not time to go back to the bush. The fight, the battle will take place in the cities and we want to tell them that we want justice, we want our votes," stressed Manuel de Araújo, warning that the people must wake up to defend the democracy that Mozambicans have suffered.

According to VOA, De Araújo is now waiting for conciliatory decisions from the CC, the last body to announce the final results of the sixth municipal elections.

This is the first time the country has waited more than a month for the final election results to be announced.

Meanwhile, political analysts believe that at the moment the only channel to appease the current tension is the CC, rebutting the Quelimane mayor's criticism of the risk of a potential war.

Ricardo Raboco observes that there is a risk of the country plunging back into the post-election war, given that most of the demonstrators are young people, who take advantage of the marches to protest the country's social inequalities.

"The risk of the country plunging into war is potential and it exists," says Raboco, because it is led by a mostly "young age group that is going through a lot of deprivation".

The political analyst adds that the ethical bankruptcy of electoral bodies could become the fuel for post-election violence.

"I don't want to believe that the Constitutional Council could want to see the country plunged into possible chaos as a result of its actions," and so "at the moment it is the hope and guardian of democracy," concludes Ricardo Raboco.

For Bebito Manuel, based in Quelimane, Renamo's marches have succeeded in expressing the will of the people's vote, and are therefore a weapon of pressure for the CC.