26 November 2008
Maputo — It seems almost certain that, for the first time in Mozambican history, there is no outright winner in a municipal election, and a second round will have to be held.
The municipality in question is the northern port of Nacala, where the candidate for mayor for the ruling Frelimo Party, Chale Ossufo, has fallen just short of an absolute majority. Since the electoral law states that, to be elected mayor, a candidate must have over 50 per cent of the valid votes, this means that Ossufo will face his closest opponent, the current mayor and candidate of the former rebel movement Renamo, Manuel dos Santos, in a second round some time in December or January.
On Wednesday, the National Elections Commission (CNE) "requalified" the Nacala votes that were regarded as invalid at the polling stations. This is a precaution against excessively strict interpretation of the guidelines by polling station staff, some of whom rule as invalid ballots where the voter may have made a slight mistake, but where his or her intention is clear.
The requalification of the invalid votes is open to press and observers. According to the "Mozambique Political Process Bulletin", published by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa), the CNE ruled that 56 per cent of the supposedly invalid votes from Nacala did in fact express a choice, and that around two-thirds of them were Frelimo votes.
In the light of past elections this is surprising. Previously, most invalid votes really have been invalid (cases of voters ticking the boxes of more than one candidate being the most common case). Among the few such ballots found to express a choice, the majority have tended to be Renamo votes.
But in Nacala 868 of the supposedly invalid votes were reclassified as votes for Chale Ossufo, and 431 as votes for Manuel dos Santos. The "Bulletin" noted that many of these votes were "obviously valid" and it was not clear why polling station staff rejected them.
This looks like an attempt by politically motivated members of staff to push down the vote of the candidate they disliked - and in this case it was the Frelimo candidate that suffered.
The "Bulletin" believes that the CNE did a professional job in its inspection of the supposedly invalid votes, and behaved in a "correct and consistent" manner. In between the clearly invalid and clearly valid votes there was a grey area where the voter had put something other than a cross on the ballot paper. While the CNE rejected as invalid any ballots signed by voters, or on which words had been written, it accepted votes where a squiggle or a single letter, rather than a cross, had been placed in the space for one of the candidates.
Taking as the starting point the provisional results for Nacala announced by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) last Saturday, and adding the requalified votes, we have the following picture:
Chale Ossufo (Frelimo): 22,711 (49.8 per cent) Manuel dos Santos (Renamo): 21,935 (48.1 per cent) Cesar Gabriel (OCINA): 577 (1.27 per cent) Julio Cipriano (PDD): 483 (1.06 per cent)
The parallel count done by the Electoral Observatory, the largest group of Mozambican election observers, is not significantly different from the STAE count. It is slightly more favourable to Frelimo, giving Ossufo 49.86 per cent and dos Santos 47.81 per cent.
The decision on a second round hangs on the final, computerized count. All over the country, the provincial elections commissions (CPEs) are entering the polling station results sheets ("editais") into computers. The computers will detect mathematical mistakes, and the figures they give will be the basis for the CNE's final proclamation of the results.
While the election in Nacala looks clean, the same cannot be said for a second Nampula municipality, Mozambique Island. The invalid votes for the Island were also requalified on Wednesday morning, and the "Bulletin" noted that a large number of Renamo votes had been deliberately invalidated by somebody (presumably a member of staff) adding a second ink mark, giving the impression that all these voters had voted for two candidates.
This was particularly flagrant, because while the ink used by illiterate voters, who mark their ballots with a thumbprint rather than a cross, looks brown, the extra marks were made in purple ink, and so can hardly have been put there by the voters themselves.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
