Mozambique Elections: MDM accuses Constitutional Council of ignoring evidence of theft of votes – Watch

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Mozambique Elections: MDM accuses Constitutional Council of ignoring evidence of theft of votes – Watch

7:37 CAT | 06 Nov 2023

Screen grab: MDM

The opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) on Saturday accused the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, of ignoring the evidence it had provided that its margin of victory in the municipal elections in the central city of Beira was much larger than announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE).

At a Beira press conference, the MDM election agent, Domingos de Albuquerque, said the party had submitted original polling station minutes and results sheets (“editais”) from stations with discrepancies which cost the MDM 24,000 votes that were allegedly transferred to the ruling Frelimo Party.

“How do you explain that both the Beira City Law Court and the Constitutional Council did not demand that the Beira City Elections Commission demonstrate the origin of the 24,000 votes that were invented in favour of Frelimo, at the expense of the MDM?”, asked Albuquerque.

The Constitutional Council had rejected the MDM’s appeal, on the grounds that it did not detail the irregularities that had taken place, or present documentary evidence that it had lost 24,000 votes.

Albuquerque hotly contested this. He said that the MDM appeal had included duly authenticated polling station minutes and editais plus a document clearly indicating the locations of the polling stations where the discrepancies had occurred.

The Council’s ruling does not overturn the MDM’s triumph in Beira – the scale of the MDM vote was so huge that it could not be denied victory. But it does alter the number of seats allocated to each party in the Beira Municipal Assembly. The MDM has lost three or four seats, which have been transferred to Frelimo.

“It’s a shame that under the Mozambican Constitution, the rulings of the Constitutional Council cannot be appealed against”, said Albuquerque. “We shall tell the people of Beira this, and one day the people will appeal against electoral injustice”.

Source: AIM