Post-electoral conflict in Mozambique: Simango points the finger at STAE – Watch

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Post-electoral conflict in Mozambique: Simango points the finger at STAE – Watch

3:25 CAT | 18 Jul 2019

Photo: O País

The president of the MDM, Daviz Simango, has said in Beira that political-military conflicts after electoral processes are the consequence of the poor performance by the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), which in his opinion undermines the popular will and calls into question the establishment of a state of law and effective peace.

“STAE is today one of the main problems regarding relations among Mozambicans. Our electoral administration has produced little or nothing for the Mozambican state and has done nothing to meet the basic needs of Mozambicans. The post-election political-military conflicts are the indicators of STAE’s inoperativeness, because when the will of the people is ignored, there is bound to be some reaction,” Simango said.

Simango was speaking at the opening of a training seminar for judicial magistrates and public prosecutors, promoted by the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office and the National Election Commission, that started Tuesday in the city of Beira.

The MDM president says that Mozambicans should reflect deeply on the performance of the electoral management bodies and on the adoption of adjusted measures for change, or risk jeopardising the efficiency and credibility of the justice sector.

Daviz Simango added that the democratic regime is a system based on the expectation of citizens’ desires, hence his “challenging the electoral and judicial bodies to bring to the public domain the reasons that dictated the poor performance that STAE delivered to us in the last voter registration, since they have put our national statistics – which received a great contribution from Mozambicans and from the international community – into disrepute”.

Regarding the training programme, Sinai Nhatitima, Judge Counsellor of the Supreme Court, explained that it was intended to equip participants with the necessary tools for an adequate interpretation and application of electoral law “with a view to ensuring a prompt and rapid quality of justice”, and said that it had been “a positive contribution to the realisation of peace and social harmony”.

The magistrates’ training programme, which had as its guiding motto: “The role of the judiciary in the administration of electoral justice – a contribution to the consolidation of peace, democracy and the rule of law”, ends today.