Critical Mozambique Mayor Shot Dead in Opposition Stronghold

(Bloomberg) -- The mayor of Mozambique's third-largest city, who was planning to run in next year's election as an independent candidate, was shot dead in the northeastern opposition stronghold of Nampula.

Mahamudo Amurane was killed Wednesday night, police spokesman Inacio Dina said in comments aired on STV, a broadcaster based in the capital, Maputo. The mayor had been using private security after dismissing officers assigned to him by the state.

“He was murdered by a tall man who shot him three times as he left his private residence where he had been working with contractors,” Saide Ali, a member of the Nampula municipal government, told reporters late Wednesday.

While Amurane was elected Nampula's mayor in 2013 for the Mozambique Democratic Movement, the nation's third-largest party, he planned to be an independent candidate at next year's mayoral elections. Nampula is one of four cities governed by the MDM, an offshoot of the opposition Renamo party. The rest of Mozambique's 53 regions are controlled by the ruling Frelimo party as Renamo boycotted all elections held four years ago.

Perpetrators of the “brutal act” wanted to see the party out of “political action,” MDM party leader Daviz Simango told reporters in the coastal city of Beira.

While the natural gas-rich nation marked on Wednesday 25 years of an agreement that ended a 16-year civil war, it's been plagued by conflict between government troops and Renamo militia since 2013. A year ago, a Renamo member and delegate to political negotiations with the government was killed in the capital.

To contact the reporter on this story: Borges Nhamire in Maputo at bnhamire@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura, Michael Gunn