Flie Photo: Mozambique's new President Filipe Nyusi. (Agence France-Presse)
Mozambique's new president Filipe Nyusi opened talks today with opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama in a bid to calm a volatile political situation after the opposition rejected the results of an October election.
It is the first time the two are meeting face-to-face since Mr Nyusi took the reins of power in the coal and gas rich southern African country last month.
The Renamo leader Dhlakama, who claims the October elections which brought back the Frelimo party to power were fraudulent, boycotted Nyusi's inauguration ceremony and his party shunned the opening of parliament.
He has threatened to form a parallel government in parts of the gas-rich country where his party came out top in the election.
Mr Dhlakama has disputed the outcome of every election since 1990, and in the months leading up to the October poll led a low-level insurgency against the government from his bush hideout.
But the October poll showed his popularity is growing again - he took 37 per cent of the vote, more than double his 2009 score.
Mr Nyusi won 57 per cent, sharply down on the 75 per cent garnered by his predecessor.
Mr Nyusi had at his wearing in ceremony, pledged "to open constructive dialogue" with all political forces in a country that was ravaged by a brutal 16-year civil war that ended in 1992.