Matola court throws out Renamo and MDM appeals – AIM report

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Matola court throws out Renamo and MDM appeals – AIM report

7:15 CAT | 19 Oct 2018

File photo: O País

The Matola District Court in the southern province of Maputo has rejected the appeals by both the former rebel movement Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) against the results of last week’s municipal elections in Matola, which is Mozambique’s second largest city.

Both Renamo and the MDM argued that the results announced by the Matola City Elections Commission, giving a very slight victory (less than one per cent) to the ruling Frelimo Party, were fraudulent.

The court, however, did not even look at Renamo’s arguments, but threw the appeal out, on the grounds that it had been submitted late.

The law on municipal elections says that appeals must be submitted to the court within 48 hours of the relevant elections commission publicly posting the results.

The result sheet from the Matola Elections Commission is undated, and was read out by Commission chairperson Carlos Come at a public ceremony last Saturday, 13 October. But the Commission says the results were posted for anyone to read on its door on Friday, 12 October.

ALSO READ: Watch: Renamo claims victory in Matola – AIM report, Mozambique Elections

Renamo protests 4 municipalities including Matola – CIP, Mozambique Elections

Hence the appeal should have been submitted by Sunday 14 October. But when deadlines fall on a Sunday, general Mozambican law allows the appeal or other relevant document to be submitted on the next working day – in this case, Monday, 15 October.

Since the Renamo appeal was only deposited with the court on 16 October, the court rejected it out of hand.

The MDM appeal was caught by exactly the same deadline. But in the MDM’s case, the court added that the appeal could not be considered because it did not state at which Matola polling stations the alleged irregularities took place.

The MDM’s Matola mayoral candidate, Silverio Ronguane, told the independent television station STV that this was absurd, because the MDM was not protesting against the polling station count, but against the “intermediate count” by the City Elections Commission, which is the tallying of the votes from all the stations to give a final result.

The MDM claimed that the intermediate count transferred 4,000 votes from the MDM to Frelimo, which was enough to give Frelimo its slim victory over Renamo.

As for missing the deadline, Ronguane claimed it had to be counted as from Monday, since the courts are not open on weekends.

On this issue, Ronguane is certainly wrong. The law does not give a deadline of two working days, but of 48 hours. That law was not written by the courts but by the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, of which Ronguane is a member.

The law on municipal elections was passed unanimously in July, and neither Renamo nor the MDM objected to the 48 hour deadline for submitting appeals to the courts.

Ronguane announced that the MDM is appealing against the court decision to the Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.

ALSO READ: Frelimo wins by narrow majority in Matola – AIM report, Mozambique Elections

Renamo’s Matola head of list accuses police of intimidation – Watch

Source: AIM