Maputo, 29 Oct (AIM) – Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) on Monday handed over to the Constitutional Council all the data from the national centralization and general count of the results from the general elections of 9 October.
The CNE announced the results last Thursday, but in a very abbreviated manner. It claimed that Daniel Chapo, the candidate of the ruling Frelimo Party, had won the presidential election with over 70 per cent of the vote, while the runner-up, independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, took 20.2 per cent
In the parliamentary election, the CNE claimed that Frelimo had won 195 of the 250 seats, leaving just 55 for the opposition parties.
But the CNE has published none of the polling station data on which the results should be based. Each polling station has a set of minutes and a results sheet (“edital”) which should be posted at the station for public knowledge.
The CNE could have published all this material on a website, but it has chosen not to do so. Without this raw data, it is impossible to judge the results announced by the CNE.
The same can be said for the parallel count made by the main opposition party, Podemos. This claims that Venancio Mondlane won the presidential election with 53.4 per cent of the vote, to 35.7 per cent for Chapo.
Like the CNE, Podemos has not released the polling station results sheets, which are the only proof of its claims.
But Podemos says it has submitted all the editais it obtained (71.7 per cent of the total) to the Constitutional Council, as support for its appeal against the CNE’s results.
The Council should thus be able to contrast the editais submitted by Podemos with those from the CNE.
The Council has no deadline for validating and announcing the final results. It must also deal with all the appeals against the count at district and provincial level which could still take a long time.
(AIM)
Pf/ (334)
