Many polling stations opened late or not at all

Maputo, 10 Oct (AIM) – Despite the boastful claims by Mozambique’s National Elections Commission that all was running smoothly in the preparations for Wednesday’s general elections, in fact many polling stations opened late or, in extreme cases, not at all.

Thus the Zambezia Provincial Elections Commission (CPE) had to admit, by mid-afternoon, that the voting materials (such as polling booths, ballot boxes and ballot papers) had still not been transported to 51 polling stations in Gile district.

In Maganja da Costa district, only three of the nine polling stations were operational, while the others lacked essential voting materials. At the end of the afternoon, the district director of STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) in Maganja da Costa gave up and told the polling station staff and the few voters still waiting for voting to start, to go home.

According to the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), the director admitted he had received no instructions from the provincial election bodies.

The Zambezia CPE decided to share the voting materials from the polling stations where only a few voters were registered with those stations that still had not voting materials. The CPE described this as “a palliative response”. Opposition representatives on the CPE opposed the decision. The main opposition party, Renamo. Sad that the material had disappeared and a palliative solution might legitimize fraud.

Even in the provincial capital, Quelimane, some polling stations could not open in the morning due to a lack of ballot papers. It is hard to judge whether this was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the opposition in one of its strongholds, or was yet another example of the habitual incompetence of the election management bodies.

Many other polling stations across the country opened at least 30 minutes or an hour late. The main problems with late opening and general disorganization of the polling stations were in Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Zambezia province.

But even in Maputo city, materials arrived late at some polling stations, delaying opening until 09.00.

There were multiple attempts to slip extra ballot papers into the ballot boxes. Some of these fraudsters were caught red-handed. In a Maganja da Costa polling station, a citer was caught putting two ballot papers, marked in advance for Frelimo, into the ballot box.

When the polling station chairperson was questions, he said the staff member (MMV) who distributed the ballot papers may have made “a mistake”. But it was the chairperson who gave out the two ballot papers, and the voter had marked both of them, showing that this was a deliberate act.

Also in Maganja da Costa the chairperson of a polling station, a teacher named Filomena Crustovao, was caught introducing ballot papers marked in advance.

In Nacala Port a woman was caught with ballot papers marked in advance for Frelimo hidden in her clothing. In Mecanhelas, in Niassa province, two individuals were caught with ballot papers marked in advance for Frelimo.

At the Malua 2 school in Zambezia, a teacher was caught who voted at four separate polling stations. He was passing himself off as an observer and was detected by a monitor from the Podemos party.

(AIM)

Pf/ (532)