Mozambique Elections: Constitutional Council gives CNE eight days to submit actas and editais from Maputo city, six other provinces

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Mozambique Elections: Constitutional Council gives CNE eight days to submit actas and editais from Maputo city, six other provinces

6:39 CAT | 30 Oct 2024

Screen grab: Sala da Paz

The Mozambican National Electoral Commission has eight days to send the Constitutional Council minutes (actas) and result sheets (editais) of the vote in Maputo city and in six provinces, to validate the election results of October 9, which are being contested by the opposition.

The demand by the Constitutional Council (CC), which has the power of an electoral court in Mozambique, is contained in a warrant and certificate dated today, to which the Lusa news agency had access.

In addition to the minutes and notices of the partial count, carried out at the polling stations, and the same documentation produced by the district commissions in the city of Maputo, the Constitutional Council wants to receive the same data regarding the provinces of Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane, Tete, Zambézia and Nampula.

ALSO READ: CIP Mozambique Elections: Constitutional Council demands results sheets

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The National Electoral Commission (CNE) of Mozambique announced last Thursday the victory of Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the party in power since 1975) in the election for President of the Republic on October 9, with 70.67% of the votes. Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos, an extra-parliamentary party), came in second place, with 20.32%, but said he did not recognize these results, which still have to be validated and proclaimed by the CC. Frelimo also strengthened its parliamentary majority, increasing from 184 to 195 deputies (out of 250), and elected all 10 provincial governors of the country. In addition to Mondlane, the president of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the current largest opposition party), Ossufo Momade, one of the four presidential candidates, said that he does not recognize the election results announced by the CNE and called for the vote to be annulled.

Last Thursday, presidential candidate Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), also rejected the results, considering that they were “forged in the secretariat”, and promised “political and legal action” to restore the “popular will”.

Venâncio Mondlane has repeatedly challenged the CNE to prove the results it announced, presenting the corresponding minutes and notices.

On the 24th, João Cravinho, who led the Electoral Observation Mission of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) to Mozambique, reiterated to Lusa that the publication of the election minutes “is the only way to have confidence in the results”.

For the former Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, “there is no reason for the election results to have taken as long as they did, although this is clear in the law”.

The head of CPLP Electoral Observation Mission therefore considered that “each polling station and polling station should have its results visible, so that they can be aggregated publicly at district, provincial and national level”.

“In the absence of this transparency, believing in the results is an act of faith”, Cravinho concluded.

On 11 October, Cravinho had already pointed out that the mission “found large disparities in the number of party delegates, with one party [Frelimo] typically represented by two delegates in practically all polling stations, while other parties had a smaller presence”.

The European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) also considered that the announcement of the results by the CNE “did not dispel concerns” about the “transparency” of the electoral process.

In the same position, the EU EOM reiterated its “call on the electoral authorities to ensure maximum transparency, including the publication of results broken down by polling station”, asking “the Constitutional Council to respond appropriately to the contentious appeals filed by the different parties”.

Mondlane had initially called for a “general strike” in protest against the results announced by the CNE, but after the murder of Elvino Dias, his lawyer, and Paulo Guambe, the leader of the Podemos party, which supports him, he called his supporters onto the streets, leading to clashes between protesters and the police in several parts of the country, resulting in deaths, injuries and arrests.

The Center for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican non-governmental organization that monitors electoral processes, estimates that ten people died, dozens were injured and around 500 were arrested, in the context of the protests and clashes during the strike and demonstrations on Thursday and Friday, which followed similar violent clashes on October 21.

Venâncio Mondlane called for new strikes and protests for a period of one week starting on Thursday, culminating in a national demonstration on November 7 in Maputo.

Source: Lusa