Mozambique Elections: Those behind electoral ‘fraud’ must be ‘held accountable’ – Forquilha

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Mozambique Elections: Those behind electoral ‘fraud’ must be ‘held accountable’ – Forquilha

6:00 CAT | 03 Dec 2024

File photo: DW

The president of Podemos, the Mozambican party that supports Venâncio Mondlane’s presidential candidacy, today reiterated that the party’s priority continued to be “electoral truth”, and that it is necessary to “hold accountable” those responsible for the “fraud” in the October general elections.

“We pay a lot of money to those who work in the institutions overseeing this process. There are children who do not have food because we paid money for these elections. If we are going to annul them, then we must hold the people who committed this [fraud] accountable. Otherwise, we will be committing fraud against ourselves,” said the president of the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos).

Albino Forquilha took the position when speaking in Maputo at a round table to discuss ways to “promote peace in the context of post-electoral tension”, an event hosted by the non-governmental organization Sala da Paz, following the general elections of October 9, whose announced results triggered more than 40 days of protests.

According to the election results announced by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), which still have to be validated by the Constitutional Council (CC), Podemos, a party that until now was extra-parliamentary but which gained prominence by supporting the presidential candidacy of Venâncio Mondlane, will become the largest opposition party, with 31 deputies out of 250.

However, the opposition does not recognize the CNE results, which gave victory to the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) with 195 deputies and the election of Daniel Chapo as President of the Republic, and demand a recount of the votes and even its annulment, alleging “electoral fraud”.

“We need to know who actually plans, organizes, and operates the electoral fraud. If we do not know this person well, then we will hire someone else to solve a problem that they do not know. We have Frelimo, we have partisan institutions that are there not to comply with our Constitution and other laws, but to comply with the party’s commands,” Forquilha alleged, pledging: “The CC will be forced to bring in the electoral justice system.”

Regarding the CC, which has already admitted the proclamation of the results of the general elections will not take place until around December 23, Forquilha says that it should “call” those “who were on the ground” to analyse the process, such as representatives of the competing political parties, observers and journalists, checking the minutes and notices together.

The president of Podemos says that the priority should be “electoral justice”. “The fundamental problem is the evasion of democracy. The fundamental problem is that electoral fraud has occurred,” he alleged.

“That is why our party sought evidence, and brought it, in around 500 instances. This evidence is produced by credible institutions in our country. We want this electoral truth to be achieved by clearly comparing this evidence with the evidence that was provided by the numbers that were released by the CNE,” he pointed out.

Forquilha argued that only in the event of an “impasse” should “other solutions” be sought, such as through “dialogue”, only “if we reach a point where, due to clear elements, duly presented in a transparent manner, there is an impasse and we cannot achieve the electoral truth”. Any such dialogue must obey previously defined “clear principles”.

At least 76 people have died and 240 others have been injured by gunfire in Mozambique in 41 days of protests against the election results, mainly called by candidate Venâncio Mondlane, according to the Mozambican non-governmental organization Plataforma Eleitoral Decide.

Presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane has called for a new phase of electoral protests in “all neighbourhoods” of Mozambique, starting with the shutting down of traffic circulation on Wednesday.

Source: Lusa