Mozambique Elections: Two judges dissent from Constitutional Council ruling – AIM report

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Mozambique Elections: Two judges dissent from Constitutional Council ruling – AIM report

6:33 CAT | 26 Dec 2023

File photo: Domingo

Two judges of the seven member Constitutional Council have blamed Mozambique’s electoral management bodies, particularly the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), for the frauds that marred the municipal elections held on 11 October.

The Constitutional Council is the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law. So far the Council’s decisions appear to have been unanimous – which means that the two judges appointed to the Council by the main opposition party, Renamo, Manuel Franque and Albino Nhacassa, have voted with the pro-Frelimo majority, in rejecting appeals lodged by Renamo and the second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).

But this apparent unanimity broke down over the Renamo appeal in the case of the repeated municipal election in the town of Marromeu, held on 10 December.

According to the latest issue of the bulletin on the municipal elections published by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), the Constitutional Council’s ruling rejecting the Renamo appeal on Marromeu was approved by the Frelimo-appointed majority of five, while Franque and Nhacassa voted against.

In a declaration registering their dissenting vote, Nhacassa and Franque said that the problems with elections in Mozambique originate in the electoral management bodies, particularly in STAE. They argued that “it is STAE that undertakes all the electoral operations, from the count of the votes to the calculation of number of seats for each participant, and including drawing up the polling station minutes and results sheets (“editais”), which is the key moment for adulterating the results”.

The repeat of the municipal elections has shown once again, the two judges added, that the irregularities that occurred in Marromeu are the consequence of the defective organisation, administration and management of the elections.

The judges said that that those who commit electoral crimes, in the knowledge that they will go unpunished, “support particular candidates, and show that they have incorporated a pattern of behaviour that in no way favours the justice and transparency of the elections”.

READ: Mozambique Elections: Constitutional Council rejects Renamo’s appeal in Marromeu – AIM

Source: AIM