Exclusion of CAD “a legal atrocity”, Claims Mondlane

Maputo, 3 Aug (AIM) – Venancio Mondlane, the independent candidate in the Mozambican presidential election scheduled for 9 October, has described as “a legal atrocity” the decision taken last Wednesday by the Constitutional Council to exclude the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD) from the parliamentary and provincial elections.

Speaking in Lisbon, and cited by the Portuguese news agency Lusa, Mondlane said “maybe the name should be changed from Constitutional Council to the Constitutional Council of the Frelimo Party”.

The decision to exclude the CAD, he added, “shows that the Constitutional Council is even willing to immolate itself, to give up its own body to be burnt, just to defend crime and the greatest bandits the country has”

CAD itself also claimed it had been the victim of a political conspiracy. Addressing a Maputo press conference on Friday, the CAD chairperson, Manecas Daniel, said the conspiracy against CAD involved not only the ruling Frelimo Party, but also the main opposition party Renamo.

“Frelimo and Renamo”, he said, “decided to remove CAD because they don’t feel at ease while our CAD is participating in the elections”.

Neither Mondlane nor Daniel dealt with the main issue raised, first by the National Elections Commission (CNE), and later confirmed by the Constitutional Council – which was that CAD had not followed the procedures laid down in the law on political parties.

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that were among the original CAD members, the Ecological Party (PEMO) and the United Congress of Democrats (CDU), had withdrawn from the coalition, but CAD had not informed the Ministry of this change in membership.

When CAD adopted its new coalition pact, and when CAD registered to take part in the elections, it had nothing to do with Mondlane. In early May, Mondlane was still a prominent member of Renamo, and was hoping to replace Ossufo Momade, as leader of the party. If that had happened, Mondlane would almost certainly have become the Renamo candidate in the presidential election.

But it did not happen. The Renamo leadership excluded Mondlane from the party’s congress, held in the central town of Alto Molocue in mid-May, and so he was unable to compete against Momade for the Renamo presidency.

After the Congress Mondlane resigned from Renamo, and his enthusiastic young supporters collected the 10,000 supporting signatures he needed for his presidential bid.

Among the organisations that offered to support Mondlane was CAD – this was, and is, a group of tiny extra-parliamentary parties set up on the initiative of the late human rights activist, Alice Mabota.

After Mabota’s death, CAD seemed doomed to irrelevance. But Mondlane’s presidential bid has rescued it from obscurity, since Mondlane is much better known than any of the tiny parties that form the coalition.

But CAD had apparently not studied the law on political parties, since it did not inform the Justice Ministry that its component members had changed their coalition pact on 27 April. It had 15 days to inform the Ministry but failed to do so.

On 9 May CAD registered with the CNE to stand in the parliamentary and provincial elections. If the CNE had been doing its job properly, it would have noticed that the CAD coalition pact had changed.

But such is the CNE’s incompetence that it did not notice. Or, if it did notice, it did not bother to warn CAD that its paperwork was not in order.

At this stage, there was still time for CAD to correct the mistake and notify the Justice Ministry of the changes. But nothing was done, and the CNE allowed CAD to submit its lists of candidates in the belief that the coalition was properly registered.

Conspiracy theorists will argue that the CNE deliberately kept CAD in the dark about the true state of its registration. But it is just as likely that sheer negligence explains the CNE’s failure to warn CAD.

Since the CAD leadership believed there was nothing wrong with the paperwork it had submitted for its registration, it was surprised when, on 17 July, the CNE rejected the CAD lists of election candidates.

The Constitutional Council 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.

No appeal is possible, since the Council’s rulings are final.

Mondlane plans to return from Lisbon on Sunday. He told Lusa he intended to meet with the CAD leadership to decide what their next steps should be.

He promised that “there will be surprises”, but did not specify their nature. “We have no weapons, we have no force, and we do not dominate the legal system, but one thing is certain. God gave us the gift of making unexpected politics. You’re going to see several surprises”.

(AIM)

Pf/ (892)