Mozambique elections: Ghost voters give Frelimo Marromeu win – CIP

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique elections: Ghost voters give Frelimo Marromeu win – CIP

9:28 CAT | 26 Nov 2018

Photo: Miramar

Frelimo won by 772 votes in Marromeu the district elections commission (CDE) announced Friday, 23 November, compared to an independent count which showed a Renamo victory by 3656 votes. This required 2406 ghost voters and taking 1113 votes away from Renamo.

The main difference came in the 8 polling stations where the election were rerun on 22 November as ordered by the Constitutional Council, because in the 10 October election ballot papers had been taken by police and senior officials of the election technical secretariat (STAE). Then, the count was done in secret without opposition members being present.

Exactly the same thing happened on 22 November, with some ballot papers taken by police and STAE, and in other polling stations the station staff did the count but then threw out observers and media and blatantly forged the results sheets and refused to accept opposition protests. But this time there were observers in all polling stations who reported the real totals before being evicted.

Turnout on 10 October was 67% but the district elections commission (CDE) claims the turnout at the 8 polling stations was an incredible and record breaking 87%, while observers report a much more plausible 48%. On 22 November we reported that our correspondents noted a low turnout at the two polling stations at Samora Machel primary school with no voters in queues by noon (see photo). But the CDE reports an incredible 94% turnout at Samora Machel school, which would have required queues all day – perhaps of ghosts that cannot be seen in photographs.

The two most implausible results were at 25 June primary school. Polling station 3 in the school had 800 voters registered, but 811 people voted. In an unprecedented event, there were no blank or invalid ballot papers; 590 voted for Frelimo while only 200 voted for Renamo. Independent observers at 25 June primary school said that only 433 people voted, of whom 305 voted for Renamo and 108 for Frelimo (and there were 5 blank and invalid votes).

The CDE said that that polling station 5 at 25 June school, only 780 of 800 registered voters cast ballots, 530 for Frelimo and 180 for Renamo. Independent observers only saw 373 voting, with 296 for Renamo and 72 for Frelimo.

In the attached pdf we give detailed tables of the Marromeu results. The summary is:

For all 39 polling stations and both polling days:

CDE Observers & STAE internal
Frelimo 9143 48% 5828 35%
MDM 1431 8% 1266 8%
Renamo 8371 44% 9484 57%

And for the 8 polling stations on 22 November

CDE Observers & STAE internal
Frelimo 3817 75% 791 30%
MDM 236 5% 74 3%
Renamo 1066 31% 1798 68%
Turnout 87% 48%

Source: 2018 Local Elections - Mozambique Political Process Bulletin