Maputo, 6 Mar (AIM) – The Quelimane City Law Court has sentenced Vitorino de Azevedo, the head of operations of the Quelimane branch of Mozambique’s Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), to a one year jail term.
According to a report in “Diario de Zambezia”, an electronic paper published in Quelimane, Azevedo was found guilty of abuse of office and embezzlement.
At the trial, the court found that, during last year’s voter registration, ahead of the 11 October municipal elections, Azevedo had produced voter cards in his own printing press, in the Quelimane neighbourhood of Icidua.
Voter cards, which are crucial for identifying voters, should only be produced by the voter registration, at the official voter registration posts during the normal opening hours.
But one of the frauds reported during last year’s registration in several municipalities was the clandestine printing of voter cards at dead of night outside of the registration posts.
Other STAE officials accused of crimes, have not yet gone to jail, but they have lost their jobs.
According to the latest issue of the bulletin on the elections, published by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), STAE announced on Wednesday, during a meeting in Maputo between the National Elections Commission (CNE) and civil society organisations, that it has cancelled its contract with the Beira City STAE District Director, Carlos do Rosario, for his involvement in the creation of an illicit WhatsApp group, named “Beira Supervisors”.
The messages from the group, which were made public last year, showed that its purpose was to exclude supporters of opposition parties in Beira during the voter registration
Carlos do Rosário and the registration post supervisors whom he controlled were accused of setting up the WhatsApp group in order to commit election crimes. The purpose was to damage the opposition parties by instructing members of the registration brigades to recognise and receive documents only from supporters of the ruling Frelimo Party.
Despite an instruction from the CNE for the preventive suspension of Rosario, the General Director of STAE, Loló Correia, only suspended him this year, after the municipal elections were over.
The STAE central office also cancelled the contract of Daniel Cuzaminho as the STAE district director in Marromeu, in Sofala province, after his involvement in electoral offences which contributed to Frelimo’s victory in the 11 October municipal elections, and in the repeat election in that municipality held on 10 December.
Despite this, the Education Ministry has promoted Cuzaminho to the post of Director of the Ponta-Gea Secondary School, in Beira.
(AIM)
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