MDM goes to court over Matola results

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MDM goes to court over Matola results

7:56 CAT | 17 Oct 2018

Photo: O País

The opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) on Tuesday appealed to the Matola City Court against the results of the election of the Matola Municipal Assembly announced on Saturday.

According to a report carried by the independent television station STV, the MDM also called for those responsible for what it regards as electoral fraud to face criminal proceedings. The largest opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, had already lodged an appeal against the Matola results.

ALSO READ: Renamo turns to the courts in five municipalities

The MDM election agent for Matola, Isabel Macubele, said that in the “intermediate count” by the Matola City Elections Commission (CEC), 4,000 votes were taken from the MDM.

“We don’t agree with the results, and so we’re here to present our appeal”, she said. She believed that fraud was obvious because of the existence of three results sheets for the same count.

The “intermediate count” is the tallying of the results from all 706 Matola polling stations. It is a mathematical operation, and it is impossible to see any innocent explanation for the existence of three different results sheets.

One of the sheets, which Renamo and the MDM say is genuine, gave Renamo a narrow victory. But the second results sheet reversed the result, giving victory to Frelimo.

The second results sheet kept unaltered the total number of voters (320,871), the number of blank ballots (3,129) and the number of invalid votes (8,806). The number of votes for Renamo also remained the same (146,341). But exactly 4,000 votes were taken from the MDM and transferred to Frelimo.

Clearly at least one of these sheets is a fake. An analysis circulated on Facebook points out that one of these sheets is a copy of the other, with minimal changes made to alter the result. One giveaway is that the signature, supposedly of the Matola CEC chairperson Carlos Come, is exactly the same in the two sheets – that is, it is in precisely the same position with regard to the official stamp. Even the dots on the signature are identical.

Veja nas imagens os três editais diferentes sobre os resultados eleitorais na Cidade da Matola, todos assinados e carimbados, supostamente pelo presidente da CEC. Vogais da oposição reconhecem o que da vitória Renamo e os da Frelimo reconhecem 1 de 2 que dão vitória à Frelimo. pic.twitter.com/LUt5SMqIK4

— Sala da Paz (@SaladaPaz1) October 16, 2018

So did a forger reduce the MDM vote from 16,759 on one sheet to 12,759 on the other, and give those 4,000 votes to Frelimo, pushing its figure from 144,744 to 148,744? Or was the fraud done the other way round – by inflating the MDM vote by 4,000, taking those votes from the Frelimo figure?

A forensic analysis of the two sheets might reveal the answer – but the Matola electoral bodies dismiss both sheets as fakes, and the results that Carlos Come read out on Saturday came from a completely different, third sheet.

That result was:

Votes cast: 297,809

Frelimo: 137,875 (48.05 per cent)

Renamo: 135,678 (47.28 per cent)

MDM: 11,799 (4.11 per cent).

Not only are the figures different for all three parties, but the total number of votes cast in Matola has declined by 23,000.

The Renamo and MDM members of the CEC did not sign the final results sheet read out by Come. Furthermore, according to the MDM mayoral candidate, Silverio Ronguane, the final results sheet should be accompanied by minutes of the intermediate count, but no such set of minutes was presented on Saturday.

He added that Macubele, as the MDM election agent, should have been invited to the intermediate count. Failure to invite her was a “serious electoral offence”.

Ronguane wanted the votes allegedly subtracted from the MDM to be replaced (which would almost certainly give the MDM an extra member of the municipal assembly), and those responsible for distorting the results to be prosecuted.

There is a simple solution – all the parties (Frelimo, Renamo and the MDM) should have copies of the results sheets issued at the polling stations on election night. The court could check these against the sheets used by the CEC and see who is telling the truth.

ALSO READ: Frelimo’s Mulémbwè says there is no room for any kind of negotiation with Renamo in Matola

Source: AIM