
Maputo, 7 Sep (AIM) – The General Commander of the Mozambican police, Bernadino Rafael, has claimed that 19 people have been detained in connection with 26 crimes reported in the first 15 days of the current general election campaign.
Cited by the independent television station STV, Rafael said that 14 of these cases concerned the destruction of election propaganda, five were simple assaults, and three were serious assaults. “We also have cases of the sale of campaign material, and all 26 cases have been handled by the Public Prosecutor’s Office”, he added.
The police had also recorded three traffic accidents related with the campaign.
Rafael declared that, despite the logistical problems faced by the police, it would “continue to guarantee order and tranquility, without pre-conditions”.
Meanwhile, Ossufo Momade, the leader and presidential candidate of the main opposition party, Renamo, has warned that he will not accept any fraudulent results in the coming elections.
Speaking in Namuno district, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, he said “this year I’m not going to accept any fraud. This year, we have to govern and only with our vote will we get there. I will not agree to sign any agreement which results in fraudulent elections”.
But there are already alarming signs of fraud in the choice of staff to man the polling stations. The anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity has obtained the list of of 65 candidates for provincial trainers of polling station staff (MMVs) in the district of Mandimba, in the northern province of Niassa. It claims that all are public administration staff and all are members of the Frelimo Party.
If this report is accurate, then the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) had evaded the obligation to hold genuine public tenders to select MMVs and their trainers.
CIP says the list “includes school directors, pedagogical directors, former managers of STAE and staff of the district services, all controlled by Frelimo. We have learnt that all were requested by phone calls made from the Mandimba Frelimo District Committee”.
The CIP report on Mandimba is in the public domain, and if the electoral administration bodies do not investigate it thoroughly, it will be assumed that they are complicit in fraud, and that the same thing may have happened in many other districts.
According to Paulo Cuinica, the spokesperson for the National Elections Commission (CNE), all four presidential candidates and 36 of the political parties and coalitions competing in the parliamentary and provincial elections have picked up the first 50 per cent of the money allocated to them out of the state budget. Just two have not yet collected the money.
But the parties and candidates can only apply for the second instalment of the money, once they have satisfactorily accounted for how the first 50 per cent was used.
(AIM)
Pf/ (477)