Renamo threatens to break off talks with government – AIM report

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Renamo threatens to break off talks with government – AIM report

8:29 CAT | 13 Oct 2018

Ossufo Momade. File photo

Mozambique’s main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, on Saturday threatened to break off talks with the government unless action is taken to end attempts to modify fraudulently the results of last Wednesday’s local elections in three municipalities.

The interim coordinator of the Renamo Political Commission, Ossufo Momade, made the threat in statement broadcast from the Renamo military headquarters in the bush of the central district of Gorongosa.

Unlike Renamo’s generalised claims of electoral fraud in previous years, this time Renamo gave a detailed and highly specific account of the irregularities.

The most serious were in the town of Marromeu, on the south bank of the Zambezi, in the central province of Sofala. There were 39 polling stations in Marromeu, and Momade said that when local officials of the ruling Frelimo Party realised they were losing, the head of operations of the Marromeu branch of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), allegedly on Frelimo instructions, accompanied by police officers, ordered the removal of the voting material from ten polling stations where copies of the results sheets (“editais”) had not yet been given to the polling station monitors of the political parties.

Renamo says that the results of the first 29 polling stations gave Renamo 7,406 votes to 4,457 for Frelimo. The purpose of seizing the other ten results, it argued was “to falsify the results in favour of Frelimo”.

Momade thus demanded that the count for Marromeu should be based only on the 29 results sheets for which the parties had copies, thus excluding the ten that were taken away.

In the municipality of Alto Molocue, in Zambezia province, the provisional results announced by STAE on Thursday, with 92 per cent of the polling stations processed, showed a clear victory for Renamo.

But the Renamo statement said that the chairpersons of two of the remaining polling stations took advantage of shots fired by the police to steal the polling station minutes and results sheets.

It added that the “intermediate count” by the Alto Molocue district elections commission, which should add together the results from all the polling stations, took place in an atmosphere of tension, and with the exclusion of those local STAE officials appointed by Renamo.

The deputy chair of the elections commission, appointed by Renamo, demanded that the two stolen results sheets should not be added to the total – but he was then detained, in apparent violation of the limited immunity enjoyed by election officials.

As in Marromeu, Renamo demands that the two results sheets to which the political party monitors had no access, should be excluded from the intermediate count.

Momade said that a similar fraud was attempted in the town of Monapo, in the northern province of Nampula. Here too the STAE provisional results indicated a clear victory for Renamo – but Momade said an attempt was made to adulterate two results sheets to switch the victory to Frelimo.

At polling station 03154-04, the original results sheet gave Renamo 100 votes and Frelimo 60. After the numbers were changed, Momade said, Frelimo had 510 votes and Renamo 279. These figures look impossibly high, since no polling station can have more than 800 voters, and Momade’s figures did not include votes cast for the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), or the blank ballots and invalid votes.

At the second station, 03154-05, Renamo said that initially it had 85 votes to only 30 for Frelimo. This was altered to 339 votes for Frelimo and 100 for Renamo.

This time, Renamo has copies of all the Monapo results sheets, “which can be consulted at any time”, said Momade.

Momade accused Frelimo of wanting “to push Renamo into a new cycle of conflict – which is not our purpose because we are committed to the peace and welfare of our people”.

“We don’t want war but we don’t accept any attempt to call into question the popular will”, he said. “If this popular vote is not respected, Renamo will break off the negotiations, and the responsibility will lie entirely with the President of the Republic and of the Frelimo Party (i.e. Filipe Nyusi)”.

The negotiations Momade mentioned concern the disarming and demobilisation of the Renamo militia and the integration of its members into the armed forces and police, or back into civilian society.

O Partido #Renamo, através do seu líder interino Ossufo Momade, ameaçou hoje romper com as negociações de paz com o Governo de #Moçambique, caso a #Frelimo e os órgãos eleitorais continuem sem reconhecer que houve fraude nas #Autarquicas2018 que prejudicou a Renamo. #Moçambique pic.twitter.com/rCPPoy62HF

— Alexandre Zerinho (@AllexandreMZ) October 13, 2018