Podemos: CC ruling is illegal and unfair, protests will continue, live bullets killed dozens | Mozambique Elections

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Podemos: CC ruling is illegal and unfair, protests will continue, live bullets killed dozens | Mozambique Elections

8:07 CAT | 09 Nov 2024

Photo: O País

A ruling by the Constitutional Council (CC), dated 6 November, granted the appeals filed by the opposition parties Podemos, Renamo and Pahumo, related to the electoral dispute. In this ruling, the CC decided to “refer the cases” filed by the opposition to “the process of validating the general elections”.

At a press conference this Friday (November 8) afternoon in Maputo, the party’s spokesperson, Dinis Tivane, criticized the document in question. And he further announced the submission of a new complaint to the CC in which Podemos argues the body’s ruling is “manifestly illegal and unfair”, requesting its annulment.

For the Podemos party, it makes no sense for the Constitutional Council to rule on the illegalities denounced by the opposition parties at the time of validating the results, because after this validation ruling there is no longer any room for appeal.

READ: Mozambique Elections: CC refers opposition appeals to the process of validating the results – Carta

“We don’t know why the CC is afraid to say that Frelimo lost the elections. What’s the problem with saying that the CNE was incompetent? The validation phase is not to check whether the number of voters is the same as the number of voters, it is only to deliberate and verify whether the CNE complied with legal requirements and if it verifies this [was the case], it proclaims the winners”, he explained.

Podemos had, among other issues, asked the CC “to order the CNE to repeat the general count” and “to request from the CNE for the minutes and notices that served as the general count”.

Marches will continue

On the same occasion, the president of the Podemos party, Albino Forquilha, guaranteed that the demonstrations previously called by Venâncio Mondlane will continue. Forquilha accused the police of shooting at protesters “to intimidate”.

“The people who should be protecting the protesters, ensuring that the process runs smoothly, are the same people who shoot at the protesters to intimidate”, he declared.

“This situation is seen as an attempt to protect the irregularities that occurred in the elections, to intimidate our demands for justice and this can lead to extreme positions. Therefore, those who take to the streets think about how to defend themselves”, pointed out Forquilha, indicating that the violence begins with the police authorities.

Killings in the protests

“We are beginning to think that there is, perhaps, a plan to profit from this. No one has come forward to condemn the shooting of Mozambicans, we have so many Mozambicans being shot as if it were normal. No one opposes this, it seems that there is an authorization for them to kill to prevent people from revolting”, added the president of the Podemos party.

Forquilha also said that the demonstrations are part of the “pressure on the electoral bodies”, arguing that the marches “will continue”, and said: “let it be clear that we are applying pressure that we consider fair (…) But you know that we have dozens of people who died in the demonstrations with live bullets”.

Source: Deutsche Welle