Exclusion of CAD may raise questions about integrity of election bodies

Maputo, 5 Aug (AIM) – The “Mais Integridade” (“More Integrity”) election observation coalition of Mozambican civil society groups has warned that the exclusion of the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD) from the parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October “raises serious questions about the transparency, impartiality and credibility of the electoral bodies”.

In a statement issued after a Webinar held to discuss the issue last week, “Mais Integridade” said excluding a political party from an election is not necessarily a problem, if it can be shown that the party in question does not meet the legal requirements for its participation.

The National Elections Commission (CNE) claims that CAD did indeed fall at this hurdle, by failing to inform the Justice Ministry of changes made to its coalition pact within the legal deadline of 15 days. The Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, agreed with the CNE and threw out an appeal from CAD.

The problem for the CNE is that initially, on 9 May, it had accepted CAD as a legitimate participant in the elections, and even published this in the official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica”.

CAD assumed that there was nothing to stop it from running candidates, and submitted lists of candidates for validation. To CAD’s surprise the CNE found its lists “absolutely invalid”. Mais Integridade warned that this volte-face “compromises the credibility of the CNE”.

The inconsistency in CNE decisions, it added, “raises questions about the transparency and integrity of the elections” and could be seen as a sign that the CNE takes its decisions because of political influence, instead of technical legal criteria.

The statement points out that the CNE is formed by the political parties with seats in parliament – the ruling Frelimo Party and the opposition Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). Excluding any force that is not from those parties “contributes to lack of trust in the CNE’s decisions”.

Excluding CAD, Mais Integridade added, could lead to a significant increase in abstention. “When voters understand that the election is neither fair nor transparent, their motivation to participate is reduced”, it said. “This distrust could lead to a high level of abstention, which could weaken the legitimacy of the elected government, and corrode the basis of Mozambican democracy”.

Mais Integridade calls for changing the composition of the CNE to allow other actors besides the parliamentary parties to be represented. Furthermore, national and foreign observers should be invited to monitor and audit all phases of the elections, “in order to ensure transparency and integrity”.

It also suggests amending the electoral laws “to remove unnecessary barriers which hinder the participation of new political formations and independent candidates”.

(AIM)

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