CIP Mozambique Elections: CNE ordered to deliver editais for 10 municipalities to CC

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CIP Mozambique Elections: CNE ordered to deliver editais for 10 municipalities to CC

6:10 CAT | 17 Nov 2023

Image: Jornal Diario da Zambézia

CC orders Bishop Carlos Matsinhe to deliver editais for 10 municipalities this Thursday

The Constitutional Councilon Wednesday notified Bishop Carlos Matsinhe, as head of the National Elections Commission (CNE), to deliver, within 24 hours (that is, this Thursday, 16 October) the results sheets (editais) from 10 of the municipalities where the results have been contested by Renamo.

The Constitutional Council (CC) demanded “the 39 editais protested by Renamo in the Quelimane City municipality”. It also renewed its demand for the editais from the municipalities of Matola city, Matola-Rio (Maputo province), Nlhamankulo, KaMpfumo and KaMavota (Maputo City), Alto Molocue and Maganja da Costa (Zambezia), Angoche and Mozambique Island (Nampula).

Carlos Matsinhe, notified as the legal representative of the CNE, immediately remitted the dispatch to the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) to prepare the dossiers, and shared it with the CNE plenary which met yesterday (Wednesday) to approve the 2024 electoral calendar.

On Monday (13 November), the CC asked Renamo to provide its copies of the results sheets (editais) and minutes (actas) from the polling stations in Matola. These will now be compared with documents submitted by the CNE.

At each polling station, after the count, an acta and edital are written. Signed and stamped copies of these documents should be delivered to all the parties contesting the elections, and have the same legal status as the original. A copy of the signed and stamped edital is posted on the door of the polling station.

The Matola City Elections Commission declared that the ruling Frelimo Party won in Matola in the 11 October municipal elections, and the National Elections Commission (CNE) simply rubber-stamped the City Commission’s declaration – despite the credible parallel vote counts which showed that Renamo had won.

The Renamo candidate for Mayor of Matola, Antonio Muchanga, announced the CC request and said he was pleased that the Council will now look at the editais in Renamo’s possession. He was speaking at a Renamo march in the Matola neighbourhood of Machava, protesting at what the party regards as fraudulent results. “The Constitutional Council has now begun to follow the steps which the law recommends”, he said, which the district court did not do.

The results announced by the CNE are technically “preliminary”. Only when the Constitutional Council has validated them do the results become definitive. There is as yet no date for the Council to give its final ruling.

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Can editais be forged?

When Renamo contested the results in Maputo city in the municipal district of Kamubukwana the magistrate ordered the district elections commission (CDE) to submit its editais to be compared with the Renamo copies. In the 18 October hearing the district editais showed a Frelimo victory, while the Renamo editais,which have equal legal standing, showed a Renamo victory.

The full text of the judgement was published in Canal de Moçambique (25 October) and accepts that the CDE editais were written in a different ink that was not available in the polling stations – that is, written partly in blue ink instead of with the black pens provided in the polling station kits. It also confirmed that signatures and stamps are different on the Renamo and CDE documents. And the numbers on the actas are different.

Renamo argued that this proved that fake editais and actas had been written in haste by the CDE to be submitted to the court.

The full list of members and presidents and vice presidents of election commissions in districts without municipalities has now been published.

Source: Centro de Integridade Pública