More deaths in Mozambique after ruling party’s victory confirmed (VIDEO)

At least 21 people have been killed in renewed violence in Mozambique after its top court confirmed the victory of the long-ruling Frelimo party in disputed elections, the southern African nation’s interior minister, Pascoal Ronda, announced late Tuesday.

Mozambique has been engulfed in turmoil since late October, when Frelimo’s presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, was declared the winner of elections held earlier that month. Venancio Mondlane, the opposition leader of the Podemos party, who came in second, alleged that the votes were marred by “massive fraud” and urged supporters to protest the results.

Observers of the resource-rich country’s elections, including those from the European Union, reported irregularities in the counting and unjustified changes to the results.

On Monday, the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest electoral court, concluded that Chapo won the October 9 elections. However, according to its tally, the president-elect secured 65% of the votes, rather than the more than 70% previously announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE).

It also gave Frelimo fewer seats in parliament than the commission, and increased opposition leader Mondlane’s votes to 24%, exceeding the 20% that the CNE claimed he won.

The state-owned Mozambique Information Agency (AIM) said Lucia Ribeiro, the judge who announced the council’s decision, admitted that the irregularities had occurred but dismissed their impact on the results.

“The irregularities that occurred during the elections did not substantially influence the results,” she claimed, according to AIM.

Judite Simao, a representative of Mondlane, reportedly rejected the court’s decision.

“We never thought that the electoral truth would be trampled. The will of the people was obliterated,” Reuters quoted Simao as saying.

According to AIM, chaos broke out moments after the judge’s declaration, with protesters setting fire to piles of tires on streets from the capital, Maputo, to the main airport, sparking clashes with police.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, Ronda said investigators had recorded 236 “acts of serious violence” in 24 hours, including 25 vehicles set on fire, 11 police units and prison facilities “attacked and vandalized,” and around 86 inmates freed.

He said the clashes “resulted in 21 deaths, of which two were members of the PRM [Police of the Republic of Mozambique].” Some 25 people, including 12 police officers, were injured, while 78 demonstrators were arrested, the official reported.

“The armed and defense force will increase its presence in critical and key points,” he said.

Since the start of protests in October, at least 130 people have died in clashes with police in the former Portuguese colony, according to Plataforma Decide, a local civil society monitoring group. The non-profit group published data on Sunday showing that from October 21 to December 15, police shot 345 people and arrested 3,636 others.