CNE still short of money for the elections

Maputo, 20 Aug (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) still has nowhere near enough money to hold the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.

Interviewed in Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, the CNE spokesperson, Paulo Cuinica, said 19.9 billion meticais are needed for the elections. So far the government has provided less than seven billion meticais from the state budget, leaving a deficit of around 13 billion meticais.

Cuinica said the CNE is working “within the conditions that are possible”.

On Monday, the CNE chairperson, Anglican bishop Carlos Matsinhe admitted that elections cannot be held without money. Yet his only solution seemed to be to wait for the government to provide the missing funds.

On Tuesday morning, at a public debate on “Integrity and Trust in the Electoral Bodies”, prominent academic Brazao Mazula, who chaired the country’s first CNE, in 1994, warned that that the enormous length of time taken to publish the definitive election results calls their credibility into question.

The elections organized by Mazula’s CNE were widely praised, with the United Nations Special Representative in Mozambique at the time, Aldo Ajello, calling them “the best elections ever held in Africa”.

There has been a sharp decline since then, with last year’s municipal elections, for example, marred by widespread fraud.

Mazula thought it intolerable that it could take weeks to announce the final election results. “Why can’t this process be computerized so that we have the results in 48 hours?” he asked. “This will confer greater credibility on the elections”.

“Elections should consolidate peace and not conflict”, added Mazula. That meant that each member of the CNE, and of its executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), should be chosen “for their honesty and integrity”.

But the current CNE and STAE are heavily politicized, dominated by appointees from the parliamentary political parties – the ruling Frelimo Party and the opposition Renamo and Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).

Instead of simply publishing the results from each polling station, they are firstly announced by district or city, then by province, and then nationally. At each stage the political appointees interfere, ensuring huge delays in publication.

The “first sin of the CNE and STAE”, Mazula accused, “is the lack of truth, it is turning lies into truth, it is inducing society to believe that something is true, when it is a lie”.

(AIM)

Pf/ (404)