Maputo, 23 Oct (AIM) – The Roman Catholic bishops of Mozambique have called on the election management bodies not to certify the results of the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections held on 9 October, claiming that “certifying a lie is a fraud”.
In a statement dated Tuesday, the Catholic bishops claimed that the elections were fraudulent and the results were manipulated.
“The application of electoral law in the vote counting phase at national level by the competent authorities alone cannot guarantee reliable results if the data is not reliable. Certifying a lie is fraud”, reads the statement.
The document says that the elections were marred by “ballot box stuffing, forged polling station results sheets (“editais”) and many other ways of covering up the truth.”
“The irregularities and frauds, which are largely carried out with impunity, have reinforced the lack of trust in the electoral bodies and in leaders who abdicate their dignity and disregard the truth and the sense of service that should guide those to whom the people entrust their votes. In this way, they push the people not only to confirm their distrust, but also to question the legitimacy of those elected”, the statement says.
“The election results must be determined in a transparent manner, publishing and comparing the original results sheets held by the various participants. There is a need to create spaces for collaboration in governance and consider a possible Government of national unity”, the bishops say.
More than half the registered voters did not cast their votes, the Bishops noted – the highest abstention rate in the history of Mozambique’s multi-party elections.
They suggested that the low turnout was because “irregularities and fraud recorded in previous elections have shown a large part of the population that their will, expressed at the ballot box, is not respected, making the exercise of this important civic right pointless”.
The bishops also condemned the murder of prominent opposition lawyer Elvino Dias, and Paulo Guambe, election agent of the Podemos opposition political party, on Friday night in central Maputo.
Dias was lawyer for independent presidential candidate, Venancio Mondlane, and for the main party that supported his presidential bid, Podemos. He was known to be working on the appeals against electoral fraud that Podemos intended to submit to the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law.
“We condemn the barbaric murder of two political figures, which clearly recalls, with similarities in method, other murders of political or civil society figures, also linked to opposition parties, that occurred following previous elections”, reads the note.
The bishops stressed that they are non-partisan, but they “will not renounce our political and social commitment to a concrete path towards building a more democratic, inclusive, just and fraternal society, in which everyone should live in peace, with dignity and a future”.
“Therefore, as the voice of the Catholic Church, we Bishops cannot fail to denounce this serious situation that the country is going through and the violence it generates, plunging everyone into chaos”, the statement adds.
The Catholic Church calls for bodies of the administration of justice to carry out investigations and solve the case because “Mozambique must not return to violence. Our country deserves truth, peace, tranquility and tolerance. Let us pray for peace, let us be artisans of justice and witnesses to the truth.”
(AIM)
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