Maputo, 17 Oct (AIM) – The district courts in Cuamba, in the northern Mozambican province of Niassa, and in Chokwe, in the southern province of Gaza, have annulled the elections held last Wednesday in the Cuamba and Chokwe municipalities.
In Cuamba, the District Elections Commission had announced the “intermediate count” on Saturday, according to which the ruling Frelimo Party had won. But the main opposition party, Renamo, lodged an appeal and the court found in its favour.
The court ruled that there had been “defects that affect the outcome of the election” and therefore declared the Cuamba election null and void. Since there was evidence that crimes had been committed, the court decided to begin legal proceedings against those involved in these crimes.
In Chokwe, the appeal against the Frelimo victory in the election came from one of the smaller parties, New Democracy (ND). ND complained that the Chokwe District Elections Commission had illegally refused to issue credentials to its poll monitors, which prevented it from observing the elections at the polling stations.
Since ND is a legally registered political party competing in the Chokwe election, it had every right to monitor the election at all the polling stations in the municipality.
The court annulled the election and ordered the district commission to issue credentials to the ND monitors and rerun the election. As in Cuamba, it also ordered legal proceedings against those involved in likely electoral crimes.
The only reason the district commission chairperson could give for denying credentials to the ND was that he had received “higher orders” not to issue them.
In Maputo city, the Nlhamankulo municipal district court ordered the district elections commission to hand over the original results sheets (“editais”) that were used to calculate the election result. The court gave the commission a deadline of 10 hours from the moment it was notified of the ruling.
But in Chiure, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, the district court refused to hear a Renamo appeal, even though there was a glaring discrepancy in the results.
A complete parallel count by observers showed that Renamo had won in Chiure municipality by 800 votes.
The observers, from the “Mais Integridade” (“More Integrity”) civil society coalition, had observers at all 62 polling stations. They counted 12,166 votes for Renamo and 11,366 for Frelimo.
But the Chiure District Elections Commission announced a Frelimo victory, with 12,503 votes for Frelimo, and only 11,766 for Renamo.
The Commission made no attempt to explain how an 800 vote victory for Renamo had turned into a 737 vote victory for Frelimo.
Nor did the Chiure court force it to explain (by, for example, producing the editais on which the result was based, and explaining why they were different from the editais used by the observers).
Renamo submitted copies of these results sheets to the court, to show that it had won. These 62 editais were not enough to persuade the court that it should hear the appeal.
Instead, the court made a baffling remark that it could not hear the case because “it did not comply with the legal formalities for filing a complaint”, even though it admitted that election appeals are not subject to any formalities.
The Vilankulo district court, in Inhambane province, also refused to hear a Renamo appeal, on the grounds that the appeal must be made first to the District Elections Commission, and can then be appealed to the court.
Renamo said that the Commission chairperson and the district director of STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) had refused to allow it to see the results sheets and polling station minutes.
Renamo put in its appeal on the same day (last Friday) to both the District Commission and to the court. But the Commission has simply not responded.
Renamo argues that it followed the procedures correctly, but was tripped up by the Commission’s refusal to answer.
The electoral legislation states that an election is regarded as null and void if illegalities are proven that might have substantially influenced the result. In that case, the election must be re-run on the second Sunday following the court decision “on a date to be fixed by the Council of Ministers (Cabinet) on the proposal of the National Elections Commission”.
So the Cuamba and Chokwe elections will probably be held again in the first half of November.
(AIM)
Pf/ (731)