AR proposes district courts can force recounts, allows CNE to make secret changes
Parliament (AR) today debates electoral law changes, and the AR commission proposes only two important changes. If there are protests, the district court will first review the copies of results sheets and minutes submitted by parties and if there are irregularities the court can force a recount of the votes. But only the Constitutional Council can declare the election void and order a new vote. This should resolve the angry battle between the CC and the High Court.
The Commission also accepted one opposition demand for more openness during the district count. The laws would be strengthened to say that at district level “observers and the media shall attend the tabulation of results and shall be notified in writing” of the time and place. This should stop Frelimo running secret counts at district level.
But the parliamentary commission rejected all other opposition calls for increased transparency. This means that provincial and national elections commissions can continue to make changes to the results in secret and without explanation. The commission also rejected the opposition demand that elections commissions should publish their various tabulation documents, such as the tables of votes by polling station and by district, and the CNE parallel count. These may remain secret. Thus Mozambique will continue with a level of secrecy unknown in other electoral democracies.
Several smaller changes are also proposed for approval by the commission.
In response to a fraud last year where some polling station heads simply stopped counting, the commissions propose that after voting but before the count, the polling station staff have a break of up to one hour. But once they start the count, it must be “uninterrupted” until it is finished and the editais have been posted and copies given to parties, observers and media.
Ballot boxes will be redesigned to allow only one ballot paper at a time to be entered, preventing ballot box stuffing by folding ballot papers together.
Ballots by people not in the register book – polling station staff, media, observers, police, and those who have voters cards but who have mysteriously disappeared from the book – are to be counted together with all other ballots.
Finally, one change is made to increase the power of political parties. Under the present law, the elected governor is the head of the list that receives the most votes for provincial assembly, and if the governor dies, quits or is replaced, then the number two on the list is the replacement. Under the proposed change, the political party could select any party member who has been elected to the provincial assembly.
A proposal to legalise opinion polls during the election campaign was rejected by the commission.
The proposals come from the 4th commission, Public Administration and Local Power (Administração Pública e Poder Local). Mozambican elections are governed by 14 laws, and these proposals change three laws: Lei n 2/2019, de 31 de Maio, que altera e republica a Lei n 8/2013, de 27 de Fevereiro, que estabelece o Quadro Jurídico para a Eleição do Presidente da República e dos Deputados da Assembleia da República; Lei 3/2019, de 31 de Maio, que Estabelece o Quadro Jurídico para a Eleição dos Membros da Assembleia Provincial e do Governador de Província, e Lei n 4/2019, de 31 de Maio, que Estabelece os Princípios, as Normas de Organização, as Competências e o Funcionamento dos Órgãos Executivos de Governação Descentralizada Provincial.
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More than 200 registration posts extended their opening hours
More than 200 of the over 1,000 registration posts visited by our correspondents on Sunday, the last day of registration, had to stay open later than the official closing time of 16.00, due to the continued presence of potential voters in the queues.
But our correspondents found that in most others, by noon there was no one registering at the great majority of the registration posts. The districts in the southern provinces, and in the far north (except for Nampula), namely Maputo, Gaza, Inhambane, Cabo Delgado and Niassa, had very few registration posts that extended the hours of registration.
The centre of the country, especially Tete and Zambezia, was the region with most posts that extended the registration, followed by Nampula.
Many posts that remained open late had been seriously affected by bad weather, which impeded the solar panels, meaning machines had no power to operate.
By province of the posts visited by our correspondents that remained open late were:
Zambézia: 67.
Tete: 53
Nampula: 26
Manica: 23
Sofala: 21
Inhambane: 17
Niassa: 8
Maputo: 4
Gaza: 2
In Gaza, the registration post at the Chonguene basic EPC closed while there were still voters waiting to be registered.
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Zimbabweans and Malawians registering?
Zanu and the MCP may be mobilizing Zimbabweans and Malawians to register as Mozambican voters. The people benefit because their voters card serves as an ID document and they can go in and out of Mozambique, where some trade good across the border. Meanwhile their votes will be used by Frelimo.
Chicote is a village with a voter registration brigade right on the border. It is in Vila Nova da Fronteira, Charre, Mutarara, Tete, and there is regular movement across the border. According to local sources, large numbers of Malawians from Marka and Mankhokwe were entering to register as voters. We were able to ascertain that the citizens mobilized are all members of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), which seems to be organising the registration to support Frelimo.
On Friday (26 April), the Zimbabwean Mirror newspaper published an investigation showing that that Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu PF, was mobilising Zimbabwean citizens to register and vote for Frelimo. According to the newspaper, the mobilization is led by Zanu-PF, which has historic relations with Frelimo. Once registered, the Zimbabweans say they are “happy” to obtain a Mozambican document.
“With the voter card we shall also work in South Africa because in Mozambique with this document we will be able to obtain a visa for South Africa”, said one of the recently registered people. “We were told that, if we participate in the voting, we will have jobs. It’s very good that I now have a Mozambican document. I want to vote, and after voting, I want to deal with a passport. I have heard that with a Mozambican passport, you can move at will in Mozambique and especially in South Africa”.
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STAE told to register children in Nyamayabue
The number of potential voters seeking to register Nyamayabue, Mutarara, Tete has jumped. In the first fortnight of April, the Nyamayabue municipal area saw only 2 and 3 people registered per brigade per day. Mutarara Velha did not register a single voter on some days. But since 24 April, the number of new voters has exploded to 40 in each post in the municipal area. And for the brigades outside the municipality, the number of new voters has risen to slightly more than 100 voters a day.
This rise follows an instruction that the district branch of STAE received from the Frelimo District Committee to register 15 and 16 year old children. CIP Eleições spoke to many children who were registering at the brigades in the Agriza neighbourhood, located in the Mutarara Secondary School, and at the Dona Ana EPC. When questioned, the Supervisor of the Agriza neighbourhood brigade replied that she tried to act within the norms learned during her training, including not registering adolescents aged less than the voting age of 18 years, but she was threatened by a community leader, and by one of her chiefs.
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Registration in Quissanga begins on Wednesday
The training of brigade members for voter registration in the town of Quissanga ended on Monday (29 April) in Pemba, Cabo Delgado. Registration in Quissanga is scheduled to start tomorrow (1 May) and will continue until 15 May. Quissanga is one of the districts severely affected by the insurgency in Cabo Delgado.
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In brief
Voter rolls on display until 3 May: The official period in which voters can consult the voter rolls displayed at the voter registration posts where they voters registered, in order to check whether their names are included begins on today and continues to 3 May.
Tanzanian detained for falsifying documents: A man of Tanzanian nationality is being held by the police in Marrupa, Niassa, accused of attempting to falsify documents in order to register. He is 47-year-old Abdul Kadre Suleimane, who is an informal miner in the Lureco mining area. His detention happened at Moto, Messengurse, Marrupa-sede administrative post, 67 kilometres from Marrupa. The police commander in Marupa, Eufausio Agirá Tivane, said that the case reached the hands of the police through a denunciation made by the MDM monitor at that post. The citizen now in detention was carrying two identification documents with different data.
Two women were detained in Nacala-a-Velha district on Sunday (28 April) by the police after the MDM delegate at the Macupe registration post, Vida Nova, Ger-Ger administrative post, caught them red-handed trying to obtain more than one voter card. According to the MDM delegate these are not the only people with this intention. He said a group has been formed to register at all the posts, so that they can later vote at all the polling stations.
300 voters cards were found with brigade member in Alto Molócuè, last week .He is currently detained in the Alto Molócuè District Police command.
There are instructions that the targets must be met in the registration posts that are deserted in the city of Chókwè, in Gaza, brigade members have told “CIP Eleições”. The brigade members say they do not understand how and where they are to find the numbers demanded by STAE.
Graciano Limpeza, the régulo (traditional chief) of Senhabuzua, in Chemba, Sofala, expelled a Renamo monitor, Martinho Jô, from the Senhabuzua registration post. The case occurred on 15 April and entered the district attorney’s office last week, but there is still no solution. Renamo accuses the régulo of being used by Frelimo. (The full bulletin in pdf is on )
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