CNE rejects lists of candidates from CAD

Maputo, 18 Jul (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) on Thursday announced that it has rejected all the lists of candidates submitted by the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD) for the parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.

At a Maputo press conference, CNE spokesperson Paulo Cuinica said the CNE had accepted lists from 35 parties for the parliamentary elections and from 14 parties and citizens’ groups for the elections to provincial assemblies. This involved checking the nomination papers of 9,167 candidates.

The only lists that were entirely rejected were those from the CAD. Cuinica said this decision was taken by consensus, with no CNE members dissenting. He said the CNE always tries to take decisions by consensus, and only resorts to voting “as a last resort”.

The CNE rejected the lists of candidates because it found that the CAD had violated, not the electoral law, but the law on political parties. This states that political parties may come together to form coalitions, but must sign up to a coalition pact, which is then deposited with the Ministry of Justice, as the state body responsible for the recognition of political parties.

Any changes to the coalition pact must be notified to the Ministry. CAD changed its pact on 27 April and should have informed the Justice Ministry within 15 days – but it did not inform the Ministry until 28 June, which was about six weeks too late.

Cuinica claimed that informing the Ministry of Justice of any changes to the pact was “an essential requirement”.

Furthermore, two of the parties that were among the original CAD members, the Ecological Party (PEMO) and the United Congress of Democrats (CDU), had withdrawn from the coalition, but CAD had not informed the Ministry of this change in membership.

The coalition pact should also include a definition of the scope and goals of the coalition, indicate the acronym and symbol of the coalition and name the office holders. All this was missing from the copy of the pact sent to the CNE on 18 June, said Cuinica.

CAD was also attempting to register itself as an entity separate from its constituent parties. This would be illegal: the law on political parties states that electoral coalitions have no legal status separate from the parties that form them.

For these reasons, said Cuinica, the CNE could not approve the CAD lists of candidates.

CAD may appeal against the CNE decision to the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of electoral law. The chances of success must be rated as rather slim, since CAD cannot go back in time to correct the deadlines it missed with the Justice Ministry.

CAD has shot to prominence because it is the political force backing the bid for the presidency of Venancio Mondlane, once a senior figure in the main opposition party, Renamo.

Mondlane had hoped to become the Renamo candidate in the forthcoming presidential election, but the Renamo leadership refused to allow him to challenge the current Renamo President Ossufo Momade, at the party’s Congress in mid-May.

So Mondlane resigned from Renamo, and his dedicated young supporters collected the more than 10,000 supporting signatures he needed for his presidential bid. He turned to the CAD as a force that could back him up by winning at least a few seats in parliament and the provincial assemblies.

The CAD consists of six tiny parties, namely: the Party of Democratic Alliance and Social Renewal (PADRES); the Liberal Party of Mozambique (PALMO); the National Democratic Party (PANADE); the Party of all the Nationalists of Mozambique (PARTONAMO); the National Democratic Party of Mozambique (PDNM); and the Democratic Renewal Party (PRD).

None of these parties have any representation in any provincial or municipal assemblies, let alone in parliament. They would have depended entirely on Venancio Mondlane to obtain any visibility.

(AIM)

Pf/ (644)