Maputo, 27 Sep (AIM) – Staff in the Zambezia branch of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) are trying to bypass the order by the central office of STAE to cancel a tender to select trainers for polling station staff (MMVs) in the central Mozambican city of Quelimane.
STAE had discovered that the tender was fake, and that in reality the ruling Frelimo party had submitted a list of 154 candidates to fill the posts of trainers.
Under instructions from the general director of STAE, Lolo Correia, STAE-Central investigated the list, and found that the names did indeed come from “the list of a political party”, although Correia did not mention Frelimo by name.
In ordered to safeguard “the principle of the transparency of administrative acts”, STAE-Central annulled the Quelimane tender. The 154 names on the list will should now be replaced by STAE staff from Zambezia and other provinces, to train the Quelimane MMVs.
But the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), found that STAE-Zambezia has simply moved some of the Frelimo nominees to other districts.
Artur Manuel Marroda and Camilo Antonio were numbers 36 and 107 on the cancelled Quelimane list, but CIP found they are now numbers 10 and 15 on the new list of trainers for Nicoadala district.
Lopes Antonio Costa was 115 on the Quelimane list scrapped on STAE-Central’s orders – but he is now number 25 on the list for Gurue district.
Several of these MMV trainers are also members of the defence and security forces, which is highly unusual. Marroda works for the intelligence service (SISE) and Antonio is a member of the Rapid Intervention Unit (the Mozambican equivalent of the riot police).
Cancelling the fake tender in Quelimane inevitably leads to the question: in how many other districts has the same thing happened? CIP claimed “the manipulation of the public tender is happening in all the districts”.
Even more serious is an open violation of the newly amended electoral law by the Natonal Elections Commission (CNE) itself. The amended law states that ballot boxes must be transparent with a slot that allows the insertion of just one ballot paper per voter.
Boxes used in earlier elections, notably in last year’s municipal elections, had a wider slot, which allowed fraudsters to slip several ballot papers folded together into the box at the same time.
In open defiance of the law, the CNE, in a decision dated 12 September, has allowed ballot boxes from last year to be used again in the general elections scheduled for 9 October, which will certainly lead to suspicions that the CNE is encouraging ballot box stuffing.
The CNE cites budgetary constraints as justifying its illegal decision, as well as the time frame, which makes normal public tender procedures impossible before the election date. Furthermore, the CNE had ordered an extra 14,755 old style ballot boxes to add to the 64,106 from last year.
“I didn’t have enough time” and “the budget was too tight” are not normally accepted as justifications for breaking the law.
CIP has urged the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of electoral law to intervene and force the CNE to obey the law.
(AIM)
Pf/ (545)
