President Felipe Nyusi and Renamo’s Ossufo Momade inked the deal in Maputo yesterday.

This is the second time Renamo has formalized  a peace deal with Mozambique’s Frelimo Government.

The late Afonso Dhlakama signed the first in Rome 26 years ago after the Vatican mediated an end to the 16-year civil war that brought the country to its knees.

Losing successive elections drove Renamo to take up weapons and go back into the bush.

Yesterday’s peace follows the death last year of Dhlakama.

Guests at yesterday’s signing, including President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame,  heard that Renamo plans to do better in October’s election. 

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The group, which fought a bitter civil war in South Africa’s eastern neighbor 25 years ago has called the action an invasion.

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Afonso Dhlakama was not at home when the police raids took place on Sunday.

He has taken to a base in the Gorongoza mountains where he hid out as a rebel leader during the civil war that ended in 1992.

Renamo’s taken to the bush after losing successive elections – the last two years ago.

Police say some of the 47 guns – 40 AK-47 assault rifles, and seven pistols – were coated with rust and were clearly quite useless.

However at least a dozen are in working order.

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But the exercise has got the thumbs up from the regional observer mission.

Frelimo’s Filipe Nyusi, the former defence minister, looks set to hold off the former rebel group Renamo led by Afonso Dhlakama, and Daviz Simango, founder of the Mozambique Democratic Party.
South Africa’s foreign affairs chief , Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led an observer mission from the Southern African Development Community    declared Mozambicans voted for peace, in a very peaceful, calm and efficient manner.

Opposition parties report cases of ballot stuffing in Sofala and Nampula provinces by Frelimo seeking to extend its 40 year rule of South Africa’s eastern neighbour.

European observers investigating this were denied access to at least one polling station

Counting has started but final results are no expected for a fortnight.

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More than ten million Mozambicans are registered to vote in today’s poll which is the closest in forty years of independence.

Frelimo, that’s ruled the country for all this time, has put up a no-change candidate Felipe Nyusi who’s favoured to replace president Armando Guebuza.

Today voting is a test of the country’s stability threatened when Afonso Dhlakama went back to the bush two years ago.

He’s leading Renamo into a fifth election, and the party’s in danger of losing its official opposition status to the Movement for a Democratic Mozambique led by former Beira mayor Daviz Simango.

In such a closely contested race, watched by more than 1 000 observers at the 17 000 polling stations, it’s important that the loser should accept defeat.

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