Mozambique: CNE discussing Marromeu results

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Mozambique: CNE discussing Marromeu results

7:12 CAT | 26 Nov 2018

In file CoM

Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) will meet in Maputo on Monday afternoon to consider the results from the rerun election held in the central town of Marromeu, the CNE spokesperson, Paulo Cuinica, has confirmed to AIM.

This meeting is the last chance for the CNE to rescue some integrity and credibility by throwing out results that were blatantly forged, in the full view of election observers and journalists.

Municipal elections were held on 10 October, and the Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, validated the results in 52 out of the 53 municipalities. Serious irregularities were reported from four towns – but only in the case of Marromeu did the Council reject the results.

The Council noted “serious irregularities which called into question the freedom, justice and transparency of the elections” at eight of the 39 Marromeu polling stations, and ordered a repeat election, but only in those eight stations. The rerun was held last Thursday, and the parties standing were exactly the same as on 10 October – the ruling Frelimo Party, the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).

Despite the presence of observers at all eight stations, the polling station staff (MMVs) and the Marromeu police committed massive breaches of the electoral laws. They expelled accredited journalists and observers before the polling station counting procedures had been completed.

The police removed the ballot papers and other election materials, and, again in clear violation of the law, results sheets were not posted at the stations, and copies of the results sheets were not given to political party monitors, observers or journalists.

But the police and MMVs were too late: by the time the observers were thrown out they had already taken note of the real results. These are now readily available, and can be compared with the forged “official” results. The difference can be seen below:

Results from the eight stations as reported by the observers:

Total votes cast: 2,924 votes.

Renamo: 1,798 (67.5 per cent of valid votes)

Frelimo: 791 (29.7 per cent)

MDM: 74 (2.8 per cent).

Results announced by Marromeu District Elections Commission (CDE) after the police had taken away the materials:

Total valid votes cast: 5,119

Frelimo: 3,817 (74.56 per cent)

Renamo: 1,066 (20.82 per cent)

MDM: 236 (4.61 per cent)

These official results varied somewhat – inexplicably, an official of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the executive body of the CNE, gave slightly different figures to the independent television station STV, and to the daily paper “Noticias”.

The turnout claimed by the CDE was about 87 per cent of the 5,904 voters registered in the eight polling stations.

This turnout is impossibly high: it would have broken all records for Mozambican municipal elections. By way of comparison, on 10 October, the highest turnout was from the small town of Metangula, on the shores of Lake Niasssa, where 77.3 per cent of the registered electorate votes.

The parallel count by the observers showed a turnout of 48 per cent. There were observers at all stations, and they did not see the lengthy queues throughout the day that would have been necessary to produce an 87 per cent turnout.
The stations were in two schools – six at the 2th June primary school, and two at the Samora Machel school.

Observers noted substantial queues in the early morning at the 25th June school, but only a trickle of voters at the Samora Machel school. Yet the “official” CDE results claimed a higher turnout at the Samora Machel than at the 25th June school. The Samora Machel stations supposedly had a turnout of 94 per cent: with such a huge turnout, the stations would have been obliged to stay open beyond the official closing time of 18.00, but this did not happen.

At one of the polling stations in the 25th June school, 800 voters were registered but 811 ballots were cast, 590 of them for Frelimo. The observers there counted only 433 voters, and the real result was 305 votes for Renamo and 108 for Frelimo.

At another station in this school, those who stole the election materials were content to claim that a mere 780 of the 800 registered voters had cast votes, 580 of them for Frelimo and 180 for Renamo. The observers saw only 373 people voting in this station, and the results declared before the police intervened were 296 votes for Renamo and 72 for Frelimo.

When the CNE announces its conclusions (probably on Tuesday) Mozambicans will find out whether impossible results have become acceptable.

Source: AIM