The Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CDD) is calling for an investigation into the death of Father Fernão Magalhães Raúl, the front-runner of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) for the post of governor of Nampula province in the October 9 elections.

The NGO is calling for an investigation to be launched to clarify the causes and circumstances of the death, without raising speculation about people and institutions.

"If the results show that it was a natural death, it puts a lid on the matter, but a contrary result opens the way for another investigation to find out who was responsible for the death," writes CDD.

The body of Fernão Magalhães Raúl was found lying in the living room of his home in the Namutequeliua neighborhood, on the outskirts of Nampula, where he lived with only servants. It was thanks to one of Magalhães' sisters who noticed his unusual silence and decided to call him. The phone was switched off. Worried, she went to the deceased's house and found the doors locked and no sign of her brother.

"He was trying to call and the phone was off, but last night [Friday] he had gone out, came back and got in. All the doors were locked. I called Dad to bring the keys so I could open these two doors. Dad came, opened the door and when we entered the room we found the body," he writes, quoting the newspaper "O País".

The CDD notes that Magalhães was entering politics against a backdrop of disputes with the Catholic Church, which forbids clergymen from running for political office.

"In the event that the death was not natural, it will be inevitable that fields of speculation will be created with associations to the disagreements that the deceased had with the Catholic Church, as happened, for example, with the MDM when Mahamudo Amurane was assassinated seven years ago," he recalled.

In the context of the crisis plaguing the MDM, that party, which once ran Nampula, could consider prolonging the marriage with the priest with a view to having him as its candidate for mayor of Nampula in the next local elections. Following this reasoning, and since the death was not natural, another field of speculation opens up, more to the political side, in the sense of looking at the death as having been politically motivated, he says.