12 November 2009
Maputo — The Central Committee Secretary for Mobilisation and Propaganda of Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party, Edson Macuacua, declared on Wednesday that the main winners of the 28 October general elections were the Mozambican people "who knew how to make the right choice".
Macuacua was speaking to reporters at the Frelimo Maputo headquarters shortly after the announcement, by the National Elections Commission (CNE), of the official results. These show a landslide victory for Frelimo with 75 per cent of the vote.
Macuacua declared that the electorate had displayed a high level of political awareness, maturity and responsibility.
"Mozambicans showed a high degree of self-esteem, a high spirit of citizenship, sovereignty and patriotism, and exercised their civic right to vote in a peaceful, massive and orderly fashion", he said.
As for the fairness of the elections, Macuacua only needed to point to the fact that opposition members of the election commissions had approved the results at all levels - district, provincial and national.
"The CNE has not recorded protests or claims based on which the results of these elections can be disputed", he said.
The former rebel movement Renamo has two appointees on all the district and provincial elections commissions and on the CNE itself. Despite the Renamo leadership's claims of fraud, none of these Renamo appointees voted against acceptance of the results.
This has made those Renamo members of the commissions complicit in obvious malpractice - such as the impossibly high turnouts in parts of Gaza and Tete provinces where there were polling station results sheets which claimed that 100 per cent or more than 100 per cent of the registered electorate voted.
Macuacua stressed that, by giving over 75 per cent of their votes to Frelimo and to incumbent President Armando Guebuza, Mozambicans had shown their confidence in the party and its candidate.
"The Mozambican people deposited a conscious vote, a rational vote, a vote for the continuity of peace, stability and development", he stressed. They wanted Frelimo and Guebuza "to continue their noble mission of serving the country and the people, and to continue leading the struggle against poverty".
Asked whether Frelimo would accept an amendment to the parliamentary standing orders, so that the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) could form an official parliamentary group, Macuacua left the question open.
The MDM managed to elect eight deputies, but the standing orders say that a parliamentary group must have at least 11 deputies. Without a parliamentary group, the MDM will not be able to appoint anyone to the Standing Commission, the governing board of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, and it will not have the right to chair any of the working commissions.
Macuacua said that Frelimo would continue to be guided by the law (and the standing orders have the force of law), but would always be "open to dialogue".
The MDM will doubtless point out that the Constitution sets no limit to the size of a parliamentary group. It merely states that "deputies elected by each party may form a parliamentary group", and that "the constitution and organisation of the parliamentary group are fixed by the standing orders".
There is no mention in the Constitution of any threshold a party must cross before it can form a parliamentary group.
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