Maputo — Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE) on Saturday accused the chairperson of the Youth Parliament, Salomao Muchanga, of lying in his claims that the CNE had boycotted a September debate organised by the Youth Parliament.

The event took place on 16 September, and Muchanga told the meeting he had delivered the invitation to CNE chairperson, Joao Leopoldo da Costa, in good time, and that he was surprised nobody from the CNE had turned up. In the absence of Costa, or anybody representing him, the meeting turned into a series of denunciations of the electoral bodies, some of them couched in extremist language.

Last week, Costa told Mozambican Television (TVM) that he had only received Muchanga's invitation on 14 September, just two days before the meeting, and that he could not re-arrange his schedule to fit it in.

Interviewed in the latest issue of the weekly paper "Savana", Muchanga claimed that the CNE had received the letter on 11 September and thus had plenty of time. He accused Costa of lying about the date.

At a Saturday press conference, the spokesperson for the CNE, Juvenal Bucuane, showed reporters copies of the Youth Parliament invitation which is indeed dated 11 September (a Friday), but which only entered the CNE offices the following Monday. The letter bears the CNE's stamp acknowledging receipt, with the date of 14 September clearly indicated.

Bucuane said that Costa took the precaution of phoning up Muchanga to explain that he was unable to attend the meeting. On 15 September, Costa put this in writing, and asked Muchanga to drop by the CNE office to pick up the letter.

He did so on 16 September itself, and the CNE's copy of the letter bears Muchanga's signature, acknowledging that he had received the letter.

Yet immediately after obtaining the letter, Muchanga went to the room where the debate was to be held, and told the audience he did not know why Costa had not appeared. Even though he had in his pocket the letter from Costa, explained that the CNE chairperson had prior engagements.

Muchanga was later to suppress the very existence of this letter in his interview with "Savana".

It now looks as if the meeting was a set up, designed solely as part of a campaign to denigrate the CNE. The CNE, with its habitual lack of any sense of public relations, assisted its opponents by not giving its side of the story until more than three weeks had passed.