Maputo, 11 Oct (AIM) – A member of the polling station staff (MMV) in the central Mozambican province of Manica was caught committing fraud during Wednesday’s general elections – but was still allowed to continue working at the polling station.
According to the Sala da Paz (“Peace Room”) election monitoring platform, the incident took place in polling station 060353-01, in the town of Guro. The polling station secretary (whose name was not given in the report) was caught with extra ballot papers concealed in her clothing.
She was arrested and given, correctly, a summary trial. The court found her guilty and fined her five times the monthly minimum wage (43,790 meticais – about 684 US dollars at the current exchange rate).
But she was then released and allowed to return to the polling station, accompanied by the polling station chairperson. She arrived at the polling station at around midnight on Wednesday, when the counting of votes was still under way.
Sala da Paz spokesperson, Teresa Xavier, noted that in blatant violation of the law some polling stations were refusing to post their results sheets (“editais”) on the walls of the station. The editais should be posted immediately after the count has finished.
She noted that, in some areas, there were power cuts, so the count had to be done by torchlight. Sala da Paz found that at station 050871-03, in the central district of Maringue, even the use of torches was banned, by order of the District Director of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE).
In some stations, journalists and observers were illegally excluded from the count. Xavier said the MMVs told her they were obeying “higher orders”, or that there was a legal restriction on observation (which is untrue). There was also, she added, “agitation” in some stations, when political parties spotted discrepancies in the vote addition, and demanded a recount.
Fake results sheets have appeared, claiming that at some polling stations 100 per cent of the registered voters turned out, and all of them voted for Frelimo.
Thus at station 071835-04 in Zumbo, in the central province of Tete, there were 763 registered voters, plus six “special votes” (these are for police and observers who are allowed to vote at stations other than the ones where they registered).
All 769 votes were cast for Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo. Not a single vote was cast for any of the other three candidates. There were no blank votes and no invalid ballots.
The absurdity of such results is clear. They would mean that, between the voter registration and the election date, nobody died in Zumbo, nobody moved away, and nobody was too ill to go the polls.
This fraud of 100 per cent turnout has become frequent, election after election, in parts of Tete and Gaza provinces, yet nobody has ever been punished for it.
(AIM)
Pf/ (482)