18 November 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo has tried to alter the list of names of its candidates for the Municipal Assembly in the central city of Beira.
The first list of names which Renamo sent to the National Elections Commission (CNE) included supporters of the current mayor Beira, Daviz Simango, in top positions on the list.
But with an increasingly bitter split in Renamo between supporters and opponents of Simango (who was expelled from the party in September, and is now running as an independent for a second term as mayor), Renamo changed the list, demoting all of Simango's supporters.
Renamo members openly told the independent newsheet "Mediafax" that they had put members loyal to the official Renamo candidate for mayor, Manuel Pereira, at the top of the list, while supporters of Simango dropped towards the bottom. This is important, because only those in the top two thirds of the list stand a realistic chance of being elected.
A municipal assembly packed with his opponents could make life very difficult for Simango, if he wins his second term. He might find it impossible, for example, to pass the municipal budget.
A flagrant example of the manipulation of the list is that the outgoing chairperson of the assembly, Borges Cassicussa, has fallen to 34th position on the amended list Since there are only 45 seats in the Beira assembly, he has effectively been excluded. (This is because, even if the vote of the ruling Frelimo Party collapses - and Frelimo is confident that the opposite will happen - it is virtually certain to pick up at least a dozen seats).
Simango dismisses Renamo's amendments to the list as illegal. This depends on when the changes were made. The CNE approved definitive lists of candidates on 8 October, and these were fixed on the CNE notice boards a few days later. Any change to these lists would certainly be illegal.
Indeed, the CNE itself tried to change the lists by disqualifying three Renamo mayoral candidates (for the towns of Manica, Dondo and Gorongosa), because they had no valid residence certificates proving that they had lived in the municipalities concerned for at least six months.
The Constitutional Council, the body which has the final word in electoral disputes, overruled the CNE, pointing out that there is no such thing as "a provisional definitive list". The list of candidates published by the CNE could not be altered weeks later.
Something similar, but on a smaller scale, happened in the 2004 general elections, when Renamo tried to change the order of its candidates on the list for parliamentary deputies from Zambezia province. The Constitutional Council ruled that this was illegal, and restored the original order of the list.
Meanwhile rumours are circulating in both Beira and Chimoio, capital of the central province of Manica, that Frelimo is buying up voters' cards from supporters of the opposition, so that they will be unable to vote. Indeed, in Chimoio several hundred voter cards were allegedly found in a rubbish tip.
Frelimo has categorically denied the rumours. The party's Central Committee Secretary for Mobilisation and Propaganda, Edson Macuacua, said such claims were just "excuses in advance for defeat" from the Simango camp.
Buying up voters cards is also futile. For, although a voter card certainly makes voting easier, it is not obligatory: people who have lost their voter cards can still vote if their names are on the electoral register, and if they have some other form of identification (such as a passport or identity card) which carries their photograph.
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