Mozambique: CNE members accuse political parties of interference

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Mozambique: CNE members accuse political parties of interference

6:52 CAT | 28 May 2021

FILE - Illustrative photo. [File photo: DW]

Members of Mozambique’s National Election Commission (CNE) have accused political parties of interfering in the functioning of electoral bodies, a stance they describe as pernicious to the credibility of electoral processes in the country.

“I have spent seven years as a CNE member, and if I had to write a memoir about the lessons I learned from all those years, it would be a very sad story,” said Barnabé Nkomo, a member of the electoral body.

Nkomo’s criticism came during a debate on “Electoral processes in Mozambique: Lessons, challenges and paths for reform” held on Wednesday as part of a seminar called “Thematic Induction of the New CNE”.

Taking advantage of the fact that they legally appoint members to the CNE, political parties do everything they can to make the electoral oversight body act in their favour, Nkomo says.

Nkomo occupies his position by nomination of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the country’s third-largest political party.

“One of the negative aspects of electoral processes in Mozambique is the interference of competitors,” he said, adding that political parties focus their action on the country’s electoral organs, because they believe that they are the ones which “win elections”.

“But it is not the electoral bodies that win the elections; it is the electoral manifestos of the political parties [that win them],” he asserts.

Vice-president of the CNE, Fernando Mazanga, also criticised the manipulation of some members of electoral bodies by political parties, in response defending compliance with the law and ethics.

“What is the purpose of the electoral law, if it is not enforced? Our law is good, what is not good is us,” Mazanga, a senior member of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, says.

Mazanga said that the members of the entity must put aside prejudices in relation to political forces for which they do not have sympathy, in order to be independent in their performance.

“We must stop being at the service of outside interests, and act according to the dictates of the law and of our conscience,” he declared.

CNE member Rodrigues Timba blamed obscure aspects of the law for misinterpretation of electoral norms and conflicts, and urged harmonization of the legislation.

“It is important that the electoral legislation is standardized, in order to have a harmonised and systematised normative instrument,” says Timba, who is in the CNE by indication of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), the party in power.

In 2024, the country will hold its seventh general elections since the introduction of multiparty system in 1990.

Source: Lusa