Mozambique Elections: Renamo does not recognize electoral results - Momade | Watch
Image: Lusa
Mozambican analysts believe that the public challenge to the results of the local elections and the emergence of a new wave of young judges has created an environment of independence in the courts, but warn that justice remains controlled.
“What may be happening is some encouragement for greater independence in the courts,” said analyst Fernando Lima, emphasising that “there is a public incentive for the courts to take these positions” of recognising flaws in the tabulation of election results.
Lima noted that it is “unprecedented” for several Mozambican courts to make decisions ordering the annulment of all electoral acts and the repetition of the ballot or the recounting of votes.
On the other hand, he criticised the fact that other courts reject appeals on the grounds of mere procedural assumptions, circumventing the analysis of substantive issues.
“We are also seeing that the same courts, that is to say, district level courts, are ruling as in the past, in other words, they are making all sorts of excuses not to rule on the substantive issues,” he emphasised.
This attitude, he continued, shows that “the courts and judges are also under pressure” from other powers, especially in districts where the difference in votes between the candidates is very small.
Fernando Lima was cautious about an apparent new “judicial activism” in Mozambican courts, emphasising that the unprecedented decisions may be “circumstantial”.
Lázaro Mabunda, a university lecturer and editor of the Electoral Bulletin of the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), argued that there is a “new wave of young judges” independent of political power and with new ideas about electoral law.
“I think there’s a new wave of young judges and these judges probably don’t have much of a history of political connections,” said Mabunda.
This is a generation of magistrates who are in touch with “current legal literature” and who have “the horizon of growing in their careers with technical and legal merit”, he continued.
On the other hand, judges are part of society and are following the public revolt caused by the vices that have distorted the electoral truth, he continued.
“Justice itself is following the popular revolt against governance,” he emphasised.
The president of the Mozambican Bar Association (OAM), Carlos Martins, also told Lusa that “courts that are less sensitive to political pressure” are emerging.
Martins also pointed to the changes to the electoral law in recent years as modifications that have given judges more legal weapons to decide independently.
He pointed to the removal of the obligation to lodge a prior appeal with the electoral bodies in order to initiate legal action as a major step forward, because it prevents district courts from rejecting electoral appeals outright, as was the case before.
At least five district courts have already recognised irregularities in the local elections and ordered the repetition of various electoral acts, while demonstrations contesting the announced results are taking place on the streets every day.
Mozambique’s sixth local elections took place in 65 municipalities on the 11th, including 12 new municipalities, which went to the polls for the first time. The Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party) was declared the winner in the mid-term count – strongly contested by civil society, observers and the opposition – in 64 municipalities.
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