Mozambique Elections: PGR should bring charges against local election fraud – Venâncio Mondlane

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Mozambique Elections: PGR should bring charges against local election fraud – Venâncio Mondlane

8:08 CAT | 19 Oct 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Venancio Mondlane / Facebook]

Renamo’s local election candidate in Maputo city, Venâncio Mondlane, argued on Wednesday that the public prosecutor’s office should bring charges against those involved in the irregularities that led to the cancellation of polls in some parts of the country, as a way of discouraging electoral fraud.

“The Attorney General’s Office must very quickly bring charges the people who were at the origin, the authors, both moral and material, of these forgeries (…) If the PGR is vertical like the courts were, this will really be something, let’s say, unprecedented in the system and could be the beginning of stabilization and a new page in the transparency of electoral processes”, declared the candidate of the main opposition party in Mozambique, in an interview with Lusa.

At issue are the decisions to annul the October 11 vote by different district courts, which allege that the process was marked by several irregularities, with emphasis on falsified ediatis, in the case of the Mozambican capital (Maputo).

The ballot was annulled in at least three points, namely Cuamba, in the province of Niassa, Chokwé, in the province of Gaza, and in two districts of the city of Maputo, the Mozambican capital, with other appeals submitted by opposition parties in several other municipalities contesting the results.

“Since we started our multi-party system, this has always been, so to speak, the ‘modus operandi’ of the party in power”, said the Renamo candidate, who welcomed the “vertical position” of the court judges who annulled the ballot, even under alleged political pressure.

According to the intermediate tabulation notice presented on Monday by the electoral bodies in the Mozambican capital, the Frelimo list in the city of Maputo, led by Razaque Manhique, collected 235,406 votes (58.78%), that of Renamo, led by Venâncio Mondlane, 134,511 votes (33.59%) and that of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), led by Augusto Mbazo, 24,365 votes (6.8%).

The sixth municipal elections in Mozambique took place in 65 municipalities across the country last Wednesday, including 12 new municipalities, which went to vote for the first time. According to intermediate district and provincial results released by electoral bodies in recent days for 50 municipalities, Frelimo won in 49 and MDM in Beira.

The “Mais Integridade” consortium, a coalition of Mozambican non-governmental organizations, accused Frelimo, the party in power, of having manipulated the results of the local elections on the 11th, carrying out “a high level of fraud”.

“Based on our observation and evidence collected at polling stations, we note with concern that the sixth municipal elections were not transparent, fair and impartial,” said the director of the Center for Public Integrity (CIP), Edson Cortez, who read the statement “Fraud Roadmap”, with the position of that consortium.

Of the 65 municipalities, at least two had already canceled, by court decision, the ballot due to alleged irregularities, namely Cuamba, in the province of Niassa, and Chokwé, in the province of Gaza. In Maputo, the vote was canceled in at least two districts, Nlhamaculo and Kampfumo.

Renamo has been leading national demonstrations in protest against alleged fraud in the October 11 vote.

Source: Lusa