Maputo, 19 May (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) on Friday confirmed that it has suspended rhe director of its executive body, STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat), in the central city of Beira.
This decision was taken at a CNE meeting in Maputo on Wednesday, but it was not immediately published. So on Thursday, the STAE Director, Nelson Carlos do Rosario, appeared before television cameras, as if nothing had happened.
The news broadcast on the independent television station STV, even denied the suspension, attributing the story to Mozambican social media.
In fact, it was the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), which first broke the story. It was then swiftly picked up by several of the independent media. To check the story, AIM phoned a member of the CNE who confirmed that Rosario had indeed been suspended, even though the decision had not yet been published.
Any remaining doubt should have been removed on Friday morning, when the CNE issued a release which confirmed the “preventive suspension” of Rosario. It also suspended from their duties all the supervisors in the Beira voter registration posts.
According to CIP, this followed the discovery of a WhatsApp group, created by Rosario, with the purpose of benefitting the ruling Frelimo Party and damaging the opposition parties.
The CNE communique said the Commission “has followed, with great concern, anomalous situations, not envisaged in the law on voter registration, and reported through the media”. The CNE took measures to ascertain the truth of the reports – and then suspended Rosario and all the supervisors.
CIP had access to the illicit WhatsApp group, and published several of the compromising messages. These messages showed that the first measure to block voters from the opposition was taken on 25 April, when Rosario instructed the supervisors to reject complaints from the monitors of the opposition parties stationed at the registration posts.
“Do not sign or accept the complaints from the monitors. We cannot facilitate them”, he wrote. The instruction from Rosario was to make it as difficult as possible to register those whom he called “the enemy”. “The mission”, according to Rosário “is to knock out the enemy”.
“Strike hard at the enemy were the words of our chief, our general staff. Today we are applying them”, commented one of the supervisors, Gito Tomas Nhanombe, who urged his colleagues to block registration by those he called “monkeys”.
The CNE also decided to make up for lost time by extending the opening hours of the registration posts. The posts, everywhere in the country, will now open at 07.00 and close at 17.00 (previously opening hours were 08.00 to 16.00).
(AIM)
Pf/ (447)