Mozambique Elections: Renamo does not recognize electoral results – Momade | Watch

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Mozambique Elections: Renamo does not recognize electoral results – Momade | Watch

3:37 CAT | 27 Nov 2023

Screen grab: Ossufo Momade/Facebook

Ossufo Momade, the president of Renamo, the main opposition party in Mozambique, said in Maputo on Saturday that Renamo does not recognize the results of the local elections proclaimed by the Constitutional Council (CC), calling on the population to continue to demonstrate.

The CC, the last instance of appeal in electoral processes in Mozambique, on Friday proclaimed the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), the party in power, winner of the municipal elections on October 11th in 56 municipalities, against the previous 64, with the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) winning four, and ordered elections repeated in four others (partially in three of them).

“In view of this shame for democracy and the denial of the will of Mozambicans, the Renamo party reiterates that it does not recognize the published results,” the president of Renamo said at a press conference.

The main opposition political force therefore “encourages all Mozambicans to continue with the demonstrations”, he continued.

Ossufo Momade held the President of the Republic and Frelimo, Filipe Nyusi, the CC and electoral bodies responsible for the consequences that could result from demonstrations against the results of the local elections, without specifying the possible effect of these popular actions.

Momade claimed that Renamo had won in the municipalities of the cities of Maputo, Matola, Nampula, Moatize, Lichinga and Cuamba and in the towns of Ilha de Moçambique and Ribaué.

“How did the Constitutional Council deliver the ruling giving Frelimo victory in Maputo, when it did not win in Maputo and you all know?” Momade declared.

Momade accused the CC of not having decided based on the original notices and minutes that Renamo submitted to the judicial body, which supposedly give victory to the main opposition party.

He also criticised the lack of reasoning in the ruling in relation to the way in which the judicial body withdrew thousands of votes from Frelimo, allowing the main opposition party to win in four municipalities only, after having not won any of the 65 municipalities in the results previously announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE).

Ossufo Momade also questioned the fact that the Constitutional Council’s decision on the local elections did not mention the alleged crimes committed by police officers and members of the electoral bodies, limiting itself to mentioning “illegal acts committed by some citizens”.

Momade highlighted that electoral crimes marred the entire electoral process, from voter registration to the counting of ballot results, to the benefit of the party in power.

He said that Renamo would appeal to international organisations [“We have the SADC, the African Union, The Hague, International Court of Justice and we have the United Nations”] so that “electoral truth” could be restored, maintaining that “there cannot be one democracy for Mozambique and another for the European Union”.

“Renamo will activate international institutions to see the electoral truth restored. Our insistence is solely out of respect for the popular will, which was seriously injured,” he emphasised.

Ossufo Momade accused the CC’s Counsellor Judges of having taken “political positions according to their ‘tachos’ [sinecures]”. “The poor service provided by the Constitutional Council is an authentic lynching of the people’s sovereignty and democracy,” he stressed.

According to the unanimously approved ruling, read over the course of one hour and 45 minutes by the president of the CC, Judge Counsellor Lúcia Ribeiro, Frelimo maintained its victory in the country’s two main cities, Maputo and Matola, where Renamo claims victory , despite tens of thousands of votes being stripped from the total previously allocated to the party in power.

On October 26, Mozambique’s CNE, after carrying out the intermediate and general count, announced Frelimo’s victory in 64 of the 65 municipalities that went to vote.

In the ruling, the CC also reversed the results in Quelimane and Alto Molócuè, Zambézia province, Vilankulo, in Inhambane province, and in Chiúre, in Cabo Delgado province, giving victory to Renamo, in addition to maintaining the victory of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique in Beira, Sofala province.

Source: Lusa