Assembly ratifies Lúcia Ribeiro as chair of constitutional council

Maputo, 1 Aug (AIM) – The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday ratified the appointment of Lucia Ribeiro for a further five year term as chairperson of the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.

Ribeiro was appointed to her post by President Filipe Nyusi, but the appointment requires parliamentary ratification by secret ballot.

Of the 222 deputies present, 192 (89.7 per cent) voted in favour of ratification, while 21 (9.8 per cent) voted against. There was one blank ballot.

That comes to 214 votes. Since there were 222 deputies in the room, it can only be concluded that eight did not cast a vote.

There are only 184 deputies from the ruling Frelimo Party, and so eight opposition deputies must have voted in favour of ratification.

Prior to the vote, Frelimo deputy Clarice Milato described the ratification as “pertinent and opportune”. She claimed that Ribeiro is “unbiased” and “she will be able to continue leading a sovereign body with a great deal of capacity and impartiality in its constitutional decisions”.

Jose Manteigas, of the main opposition party, Renamo, had a very different view. Right from its creation, the Constitutional Council had not inspired confidence, he claimed, because “it sponsored consecutive and recurrent election frauds”.

Fernando Bismarque, of the second opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), called for amending the Constitution so that senior figures in the judiciary, such as the chairperson of the Constitutional Council or the President of the Supreme Court,are no longer appointed by the President of the Republic. Instead, they should be chosen by their peers.

“The act we are witnessing today”, said Bismarque, “is a mere formality which does not change the subservient nature of the members of the Constitutional Council”.

On Thursday, the Assembly elected its own members of the Council. There are seven judges on the Council – one proposed by the President of the Republic, one by the Higher Council of the Judicial Magistrature (the regulatory body for judges), and five by the Assembly.

The Assembly’s five members are chosen by the political party parliamentary groups on the basis of “proportional representation”. This means that Frelimo chooses four of them, and Renamo one. The MDM parliamentary group is not large enough to choose a Council member.

One of the Frelimo appointees is Antonio Boene, who is also chairperson of the Assembly’s Commission on Legal and Constitutional Matters. He enters the Constitutional Council as a newcomer, while the other Frelimo appointees – Domingos Cintura, Mateus Saize and Albano Maciel – have all served on the Council for at least five years. The Renamo appointee, Albino Nhacassa, is also beginning a second term on the Council.

This exercise showed nakedly how the Constitutional Council is completely controlled by the political parties, and particularly by Frelimo.

It is the same with the National Elections Commission (CNE), and its executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), which are full of political party appointees at all levels.

The politicization of the electoral bodies goes right back to the 1992 peace agreement between the government and Renamo, when Renamo demanded the right to appoint a third of the members of the first CNE. Since then the electoral legislation has been amended repeatedly, but has always maintained political party dominance over the electoral bodies.

On two occasions (in 2008 and 2012), attempts were made to throw the political parties out of the CNE, but were vetoed by Renamo, which declared “elections belong to the political parties”.

(AIM)

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