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Mozambique Elections: ‘Organised disorganisation’ and one of the highest abstention rates ever? – A Verdade
6:17 CAT | 10 Oct 2024
Photo: A Verdade
Daniel Chapo is expected to be proclaimed fifth President of Mozambique in November, following yet another election deliberately disorganised by the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE) in tandem with the National Electoral Commission (CNE), A Verdade reports.
Initial results suggest that abstention will once again be high, while doubts remain as to whether the Frelimo party will renew its majority in parliament and maintain the ten provincial governors.
The weather was actually favourable for the 17 million registered Mozambicans to exercise their civic rights this Wednesday (09-10), but voters were confronted with a significant number of a total of approximately 26,000 polling stations not opening at 8:00 a.m. and others not opening at all, as the CNE itself admits.
At the polling stations that opened, there was a general lack of voters’ names duly registered in the voting register. “I’ve been here since 6:00 a.m. to vote, but to no avail because my name doesn’t appear on the voter register. I voted here at this school last year (in the local elections) but today I don’t have the right to vote. I ask the responsible entities to bring the register that I’m registered [in] so I can vote,” asked voter Arminda Muíto of Nampula province.
“I arrived to vote at 8:00 a.m.. I went to check, where the queue was, and my name doesn’t appear. I’ve looked at every table. What intolerance does the Frelimo government have that it doesn’t recognize that the people are tired, we are tired of being lied to and used like slaves. Here in Nampula, it feels like we’re living in a foreign country. It’s not fair that we can’t vote,” voter Sulemane Carlos complains.
Mussá José, a voter since 1994, was surprised by “the situation we are experiencing here. It is not just me who does not have my name on the electoral rolls – there are more than three hundred people who cannot [vote]. It seems that we are forgotten Mozambicans. We registered, we voted last year and now, where have our names gone? We need the CNE to come here today to resolve the issue”.
The situation experienced by young voter Marlene Chiale was even more dramatic. “I arrived to vote at 1:00 p.m.. They showed me the table to vote and I handed in my voter registration card, and they looked for my name and told me that it was already marked – someone had already voted in the morning. They even tried to force me to dip my finger, as if I had voted,” she relates.
The electoral bodies also imposed difficulties on people with physical disabilities, such as Faruk Ramos, “I came to exercise my civic duty, but I can’t find access for my wheelchair. The door downstairs is closed and the only entrance is this staircase, but there is no ramp. I feel robbed.”
Polling stations with ‘comrades’ only and hidden editais
Halfway through voting for the seventh presidential and legislative elections and the fourth for the members of the provincial assemblies and governors, the CNE was promising: “In order to resolve some anomalous situations that were being reported, the National Elections Commission met in an Extraordinary Session and decided to send teams (from the CNE and STAE) involving all stakeholders to resolve these issues. The provinces were instructed to do the same.”
Some of these CNE and STAE teams noted, in the city of Maputo, numerous polling stations where the tables were made up only of scrutineers who were sympathisers and members of Frelimo, the political party that has governed Mozambique since 1975.
In the remaining electoral districts, and mainly far from the urban centres where journalists and observers worked, no one knows what happened. However, as night fell, and with the counting underway, reports of ballot box stuffing began to emerge.
In several places, the result sheets [editais] were deliberately removed from the kits distributed by STAE so that there would be none to be posted at the entrance of the polling stations, as required by law, and to make the parallel counting or even the monitoring of some of the results by the press difficult.
On the positive side, the Mozambican police did not actively intervene in the election, particularly not abetting ballot box stuffing by members and supporters of Frelimo, as happened in previous elections.
Pela positiva foi a não intervenção de forma brutal da Polícia no pleito #GeraisMoz2024 particularmente não apoiando o enchimento de urnas por parte de membros e simpatizantes @Frelimo, como aconteceu em eleições anteriores #Moçambique https://t.co/7w9QWxBmpE https://t.co/aCwSeV6Q6g pic.twitter.com/9utoNRj9lv
— Jornal a Verdade (@verdademz) October 10, 2024
#GeraisMoz2024 urnas começam a encerrar em #Moçambique mas ainda se vota, a Comissão Nacional de Eleições assegurou que “quando forem 18 horas todos os eleitores que estiverem na fila vão receber uma senha para garantir que vão votar, não importa a hora” https://t.co/vIbDmykysP pic.twitter.com/JjFvi8KPz1
— Verdade Democracia (@DemocraciaMZ) October 9, 2024
#GeraisMoz2024 agora entramos em outra fase da “vitória prepara-se, a vitória organiza-se” @FRELIMO_ @daniel_chapo24 #Moçambique pic.twitter.com/WfqnDXCxGh
— Verdade Democracia (@DemocraciaMZ) October 9, 2024
Source: A Verdade
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