CNE declares definitive Nampula by-election results – AIM report

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CNE declares definitive Nampula by-election results – AIM report

2:47 CAT | 31 Jan 2018

File photo: Abdul Carimo

Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) on Wednesday issued the definitive result of the mayoral by-election held in the northern city of Nampula a week ago [January 24], and confirmed that a second round is necessary since no candidate won 50 per cent of the vote.

The result, which CNE chairperson Abdul Carimo announced, is not different in any significant way from the result announced at the weekend by the Nampula District Elections Commission.

Of the 296,590 registered voters in Nampula, only 73,852 voted – an abstention rate of 24.9 per cent. This is similar to the abstention rate in Nampula’s last municipal elections, in 2013, when only 26 per cent of the electorate voted.

The vast majority of votes cast – 71,989 (97.47 per cent) were valid. 786 (1.06 per cent) were blank ballots, and 1,091 (1.48 per cent) were invalid.

The results for the candidates were as follows. The percentages given are of valid votes.

Amisse Cololo (Frelimo) – 32,042 (44.51 per cent)
Paulo Vahanle (Renamo) – 29,029 (40.32 per cent)
Carlos Saide (MDM) – 7,273 (10.1 per cent)
Mario Albino (Amusi) – 3,072 (4.27 per cent)
Filomena Mutoropa (Pahumo) – 573 (0.8 per cent)

Since there is no clear winner, Cololo and Vahanle must face each other in a run-off second round. The date of the second round can only be fixed after the Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, has validated and proclaimed the results of the first round.

The CNE has sent a copy of the results sheet to the Council. Once the Council validates the result, the government has a maximum of 30 days to set the date for the second round.

The CNE declaration claimed that all had gone smoothly in the by-election and that no irregularities were reported that would have a significant impact on the voting or the count. “In general”, Carimo said, “no acts of violence, intimidation or prevention of the right to vote were reported at the polling stations”.

As for the delays in the morning of the by-election, Carimo admitted only that “some” polling stations opened late. In fact, from the over 1,000 election observers who were in Nampula, we know that 43 per cent of the 401 polling stations opened later, and some of these opened two and a half hours later.

Carimo blamed the late opening on “the torrential rains that struck Nampula on the eve of voting, which worsened conditions of access and constrained the placing of electoral materials and electoral staff at the polling stations in good time”.

January is in the middle of the Mozambican rainy season, and the weather forecast for Nampula last week was for heavy rain. Yet rain in the rainy season seemed to take the CNE by surprise, and no measures had been taken to cope with rain.

The CNE’s executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), used open pick-up trucks to carry the ballot papers, ballot boxes, polling booths and other materials to the polling stations, and feared that the material would become wet and useless if transported during the rain.

The simple solution would have been to cover the trucks with appropriate sized tarpaulins, but nobody seems to have thought of this.