Mozambique Elections: MDM will challenge results – Watch

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Mozambique Elections: MDM will challenge results – Watch

3:01 CAT | 14 Oct 2024

Photo: O País

Presidential candidate Lutero Simango, supported by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), announced today his intention to challenge the results of Wednesday’s elections, in light of the “many irregularities” recorded.

“We have instructed our committee to begin a full legal process (…). We will present the appropriate complaints, including the electoral challenge,” MDM president Lutero Simango told a press conference in Maputo.

According to the MDM, currently the third-largest party in parliament, Wednesday’s general elections were marked by “many irregularities and manipulation”, including the alleged illegal detention of an MDM party member at a polling station in Ribaué, Nampula province, north of the country.

“He has been detained since October 9, by order of the district director of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration [STAE]. There is no case against him,” Lutero Simango added.

Simango also said that the party’s parallel count shows that it will remain in parliament, promising that, as soon as the MDM vote count is completed, he will announce the results.

“We have the results sheets (editais) and the notices and, internally, we will continue our parallel count,” Simango stressed.

In the current Mozambican parliament, the MDM, which also governs the third largest municipality in the country (the city of Beira), has six of the 250 seats, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party) holds a qualified majority, with 184; followed by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the main opposition party), with 60 deputies.

Wednesday’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, has not run – at the same time as the seventh legislative elections and the fourth elections for provincial assemblies and governors.

According to electoral legislation, the provincial results should be counted by the end of today, with the count in all 154 districts of the country having been completed over the weekend.

The publication of the results of the presidential election by the National Electoral Commission, if there is no second round, takes up to 15 days (counted from the closing of the polls), 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 for the national parliament (250 deputies) and for provincial assemblies and their respective governors, in this case with 794 seats 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.

Source: Lusa