Maputo, 2 Aug (AIM) – The Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, on Thursday ruled against participation by the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD) in the parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.
The National Elections Commission (CNE), on 9 May, registered CAD as a participant in the elections, a decision that was published in the official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica” on 22 May.
Reasonably enough, the CAD leadership believed this meant there was nothing wrong with the paperwork it had submitted to the CNE for its registration. So it was surprised when, on 17 July, the CNE rejected the CAD lists of election candidates.
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.
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that were among the original CAD members, the Ecological Party (PEMO) and the United Congress of Democrats (CDU), had withdrawn from the coalition, but CAD had not informed the Ministry of this change in membership.
In its appeal to the Constitutional Council, CAD argued that, because it had registered CAD in May, it could not now turn round and deny CAD the right to participate in the elections.
CAD resorted to the arcane concept of “the gradual acquisition of electoral acts” – which means that once an electoral decision has been taken, it cannot be reversed. (In the past, the Constitutional Council has used this concept repeatedly against opposition parties).
The CNE argued that this concept was not applicable to the CAD, because informing the Ministry of Justice of any changes to the coalition pact was “an essential requirement”.
The Constitutional Council essentially agreed with the CNE. Its Thursday ruling claimed that the CNE has the power to revoke its earlier decisions, and that the CAD’s irregularities were “absolutely invalid”. Decisions that are “absolutely invalid” are considered null and void.
The Council thus rejected the CAD claim that decisions taken in the phase of registering political parties or coalitions cannot be reversed.
So it annulled the CNE decision of 9 May which accepted the registration of the CAD. And if the CAD was no longer registered for the elections, it could not submit lists of candidates.
This dispute only became important because CAD is the political vehicle chosen by Venancio Mondlane, the independent candidate for the presidential election. Without Mondlane, the CAD is just a group of six very small parties that most Mozambicans have never heard of.
When CAD registered on 9 May, nobody imagined that it would soon be working with Mondlane. In early May, Mondlane was still a prominent member of the main opposition party, Renamo. He was seeking to run for the presidency as the Renamo candidate – this ambition was frustrated when the Renamo leadership refused to allow him to attend the party congress held in the central town of Alto Molocue in mid-May.
This precipitated Mondlane’s resignation from Renamo and his subsequent decision to collect enough supporting signatures to run for the presidency as an independent. He submitted his nomination papers for the presidential election on 6 June.
By then, the CAD had decided to support him, a decision which rescued it from obscurity.
It is easy enough to criticize CAD for not reading the laws on political parties and coalitions carefully, and thus falling into the trap of “absolute invalidity” when it failed to inform the Ministry of Justice of changes to the coalition pact.
But a much more serious failing was committed by the CNE itself. The CNE is supposed to check the documents submitted by parties and coalitions, and inform them of any irregularities which can then be corrected.
CAD changed its coalition pact on 27 April, and should have informed the Ministry within 15 days. Its registration with the CNE was dated 9 May, and so there was enough time for the CNE to warn CAD that it needed to obtain an annotation from the Ministry of Justice showing that it had been informed of the changes to the coalition pact.
But there is no sign that the CNE even noticed the problem, let alone alerted the CAD to it.
There was no sympathy for the CAD’s plight from other sectors of the opposition, who thought that CAD had simply not done its homework. “If you fall asleep on the rail tracks, then the train will run you over”, remarked Arnaldo Chalaua, the spokesperson of the Renamo parliamentary group.
(AIM)
Pf/ (839)
