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A lawyer and a party official for the leading opposition candidate in Mozambique’s recent presidential election were fatally shot in their car late Friday night, inflaming tensions in a southern African nation that was already on edge after the highly disputed vote this month.
The lawyer, Elvino Dias, had been preparing to challenge in court the results for the candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, whose quick rise in popularity saw him outperform every other opposition candidate in the Oct. 9 poll. Several independent election observation missions said they saw irregularities in the voting process that tilted the race in favor of Daniel Chapo, the candidate for Frelimo, the former liberation party, which has governed this coastal nation since independence nearly 50 years ago.
The stakes were high in the race to replace President Filipe Nyusi, who is leaving office after serving his two-term limit.
Although the final results have not been announced, Mr. Chapo holds a sizable lead in the tallies released thus far.
Even before the killing, Mr. Mondlane — whose magnetic persona attracted broad support from Mozambique’s disgruntled youth — had said he was being cheated, and he urged Mozambicans to take to the streets in protest. Podemos, the party supporting him, had organized a strike for Monday, with Mr. Dias among the key organizers.
Paulo Guambe, a senior Podemos official, was also killed when gunmen in two vehicles ambushed the car carrying him and Mr. Dias, and opened fire in the capital, Maputo, according to the police.
The police said during a news conference that the victims appeared to have been involved in an argument with other people at a nearby market on Friday night. When they left, the assailants followed and killed them, the police said.
Speaking on Saturday from the spot where the two men were killed, Mr. Mondlane framed the killings as politically motivated. He said the strike would proceed as planned.
“Monday will be the first step in a continuing fight for democracy,” he said. “We are going to march peacefully. If the police use violence, after that there will be an even greater force from the people.”
Mr. Chapo, in a statement released on Saturday, urged a swift investigation, calling the killings “an affront to democracy and the principles of a democratic rule of law, which we must all protect.”
In a joint statement, the diplomatic missions of the United States, Canada, Norway, Switzerland and Britain expressed alarm over the murders.
“We strongly condemn any act of political violence and call for a swift and thorough investigation,” the statement said, urging Mozambicans “to resolve electoral disputes peacefully and lawfully, rejecting violence and inflammatory rhetoric.”
Even before Friday’s killings, things had turned violent following the election. Four of Mr. Mondlane’s supporters were injured in clashes with the police during a mass march this week in the northern city of Nampula.
Mozambique is struggling to contain a violent, Islamic State-backed insurgency in the north, which is adding to the economic perils of this former Portuguese colony of 33 million people. Unemployment and poverty are high. Public investment in essential sectors like education, health and infrastructure are lacking.
As in several other nations of southern Africa, the public has grown fed up with Frelimo, the former liberation party, which has failed to deliver the better life promised after the end of colonial rule. Although the party has been dominant at the polls, critics say its officials are using fraud to stay in power — allegations the party has denied.
After this month’s vote, the International Republican Institute, a Washington-based advocacy group that deployed observers, said that the election fell short of international standards. It said that Frelimo benefited from the misuse of public resources, that ballot boxes had been stuffed, that voters were intimidated and that the number of registered voters in some areas exceeded the estimated population, suggesting that illegal votes were being cast.
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