Renamo goes to court over Gaza – Who was unprepared? – By Joseph Hanlon

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Renamo goes to court over Gaza – Who was unprepared? – By Joseph Hanlon

10:23 CAT | 05 Jul 2019

File photo: RM

Renamo has appealed to the Constitutional Council against the National Elections Commission (CNE) allocation of parliament (AR) seats to Gaza province. It says the CNE 23 June decision (Del 88/CNE/2019) allocating AR seats is based on “lies” and “bad faith” and should be cancelled.

In evidence, Renamo cites this Bulletin as well as EISA and IESE. The CNE claims it registered 1,162,883 voters in Gaza, which is 82% of the people found in Gaza in the 2017 national population census (1,422,460). This means that only 18% of the residents of Gaza are children, compared to 53% in the rest of the country – or it means that the national population census missed an incredible 600,000 people in Gaza. No one has ever noted that Gaza has very few children, or that the census missed huge parts of Gaza.

Thus, Renamo says there must be “fraud in the attribution of seats to Gaza province”. Parliamentary seats are attributed in proportion of registered votes. Gaza, which votes overwhelmingly for Frelimo, gained 9 seats compared to 2014, when registered voters were closer to the national average for adults in the population. Nampula, Zambezia and Sofala – which tend to support the opposition – lose 9 seats.

The Bulletin also estimated that the unprecedented jump in the number of voting age adults in just five years would give Frelimo presidential candidate Filipe Nyusi 370,000 extra votes – 6% of the total vote.

STAE says domestic observers unprepared, but CSOs say STAE blocked observation

“Civil society organisations were not prepared to observe the electoral registration,” Felisberto Naife, director general of STAE, the election technical secretariat, told the daily Noticias on 18 June. An outraged civil society replied on 27 June that Naife had it backwards, it was STAE that was unprepared, and that his statement was intended to cover up “his incapacity to organise a transparent and credible process”.

Civil society groups had a record 650 observers (more than half from this Bulletin), and the law says the observer credentials must be issued within five days of application, but STAE proved unable to emit that many credentials. Disorganisation by STAE caused particular problems in Nampula, Sofala, Tete and Zambezia.

The civil society groups say STAE was late issuing the form that had to be filled in, then in some places demanded documents not specified in the electoral law, and even when those were provided there was a lack of people in STAE to deal with the requests for observer credentials. In some places, this was “deliberate disorganisation” to prevent observation.

Nevertheless, domestic observers pointed out the inflated registration in Gaza, registration posts which never opened or opened very late, the unequal distribution of registration brigades with more in Frelimo areas and fewer in opposition areas, and the constant breakdowns of registration computers.

The civil society groups which signed the statement are ADS; CESC; PARLAMENTO JUVENIL; CEURBE; SOLIDARIEDADE; FORCOM; WLSA; FORUM MULHER; JOINT; IESE; CIP; and NANA.

By Joseph Hanlon

Source: 2019 General Elections - Mozambique Political Process Bulletin