Mozambique Elections: Mais Integridade reports ballot stuffing in Zambézia and Nampula provinces

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Mozambique Elections: Mais Integridade reports ballot stuffing in Zambézia and Nampula provinces

10:15 CAT | 09 Oct 2024

Screen grab: Adriano Nuvunga/Facebook

The Mais Integridade Electoral Consortium, which brings together Mozambican civil society organizations, this Wednesday reporteded “ballot box stuffing” in the provinces of Zambézia and Nampula and warned of cases of “impediment” of observers and candidate representatives.

“Mais Integridade observers verified, throughout this voting period, cases of ballot box stuffing and/or voters caught with pre-marked ballots and multiple votes in the provinces of Zambézia and Nampula,” reads the consortium’s statement.

The document, which analyses voting in Mozambique from 06:00 until 15:00, when there were three hours left until the end of the voting process and subsequent counting of votes, specifies that in the provinces in question there were cases of people who were caught “trying to insert” previously filled-in ballots into the ballot boxes, and other cases were of attempts to vote more than once.

Mais Integridade, which has 1,900 observers throughout the country, adds that it recorded cases of observers and candidate delegates being prevented from voting in at least 90 polling stations.

It also states that the cases occurred in the provinces of Niassa, Zambézia and Sofala, where observers and candidate delegates from the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) and the Optimistic People for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos) parties were targeted.

The CNE registered 17,163,686 voters for these elections, including 333,839 in seven African countries and two European countries.

The elections were attended by more than 184,500 polling station staff, distributed across the country’s 154 districts (180,075) and outside the country (4,436). There were 8,737 polling stations in Mozambique and 334 abroad, corresponding to 25,725 polling station desks in the country and 602 polling stations abroad (South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Germany and Portugal), each with seven members.

Today’s general elections included the seventh presidential elections – in which the current head of state, Filipe Nyusi, who has reached the constitutional limit of two terms, is no longer running – simultaneously with the seventh legislative elections and the fourth elections for provincial assemblies and governors.

The candidates for the presidency are Lutero Simango, supported by the MDM, the third parliamentary force, Daniel Chapo, with the support of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power since 1975), Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the extra-parliamentary Podemos party, and Ossufo Momade, with the support of Renamo, the largest opposition party.

The publication of the results of the presidential election by the CNE, if there is no second round, takes up to 15 days, before they are sent for validation by the Constitutional Council, which has no deadline to proclaim the official results after analysing possible appeals.

The vote included legislative elections (250 deputies) and elections for provincial assemblies and their respective provincial governors, in this case with 794 mandates to be distributed. The CNE approved lists of 35 political parties running for the Assembly of the Republic and 14 political parties and groups of citizens voting for the provincial assemblies.

According to data from the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), 11,516 national observers and 412 international observers were accredited to monitor these elections, including Electoral Observation Missions from the EU, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), among other organizations.

🚨🚨ENCHIMENTO DE URNA EM NACALA-PORTO

Municipes de Nacala-Porto encontram na EPC de 7 de Abril , uma senhora que carregava votos da Frelimo no peito por baixo das vestes.#decideeleicoes24 pic.twitter.com/1tNKvJ0HJM

— Plataforma_decide (@PDecide23) October 9, 2024