Mozambique Reelects Leader

The ruling party won last month’s presidential elections but will have to share power in Parliament with rebels it fought for 19 years, according to final results released Saturday.

The results of the Oct. 27-29 ballot confirmed what election officials had said for days: President Joaquim Chissano was reelected and his Mozambique Liberation Front, or Frelimo, edged past the former rebels in the parliamentary vote.

The close finish in Parliament was a shock for the ruling party, which embarked on democratic reforms in the late 1980s. Chissano was seen as the instigator of the reforms and was clearly more popular than his party.

It was the first multi-party vote since independence from Portugal in 1975, and it came two years after the government and rebels signed a U.N.-mediated treaty ending 15 years of civil war. The war killed 600,000 people and devastated this southeast African nation.