Maputo, 1 Nov (AIM) – Mozambique’s Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law has rejected appeals from the ruling Frelimo Party and from the Matola District Elections Commission (CDC), which sought to annul the decision by the district court to order a recount of all the votes cast in Matola during the 11 October municipal elections.
The preliminary count, as announced by the CDC, claimed that Frelimo had won in Matola. But a parallel count of the votes, by credible civil society organisations, pointed to a victory by the main opposition party, Renamo.
The Constitutional Council argued that the CDC had no legitimacy to submit an appeal. That was the prerogative of the parties contesting the election. The task of an elections commission, the Council said, was simply to organize elections.
Furthermore, there were doubts as to the authenticity of the polling station minutes and results sheets (“editais”) presented by the CDC.
As for the Frelimo appeal, it had denied that the Matola court was competent to order a recount, on the technical ground that Matola is divided into three administrative posts (Matola-Sede, Infulene and Machava).
The Constitutional Council thought this was irrelevant. It would only be of importance when considering the count at individual polling stations. But the district count (known as the “intermediate count”) brought together the results sheets from all the polling station.
This was “a single administrative act”, said the Council, and it was quite correct to use the District Court, and not the court of any administrative post, to challenge the intermediate result. Hence, the Frelimo appeal fell.
But the Council also threw out an appeal from Renamo which wanted the Court to order, not just a recount, but a rerun of the entire election in Matola.
However, Renamo had not presented enough proof for the court to annul the election.
With all three appeals rejected, the original order of the Matola court that the votes must be recounted currently stands.
But this may change when, sometime in the next few days, the Constitutional Council reconsiders all the results from the municipalities, announced last Thursday by the National Elections Commission (CNE).
It is then that the Council may look at the substantial issues raised by Renamo (such as the erasures in polling station minutes and editais, and numerical discrepancies between the minutes and the editais).
(AIM)
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