16 November 2009
Maputo — Mozambique's main opposition party, Renamo, on Monday appealed against the results of the 28 October general elections, won by the ruling Frelimo Party with about three quarters of the votes.
The Renamo national election agent, Saimone Macuiana, delivered the appeal, running to about 500 pages, to the National Elections Commission (CNE). The CNE must now forward the Renamo complaint, with its response, to the appeals body, the Constitutional Council.
Macuiana told reporters Renamo is demanding the annulment of the elections, and that all those who committed electoral offences "should be severely punished".
When he announced the official results last Wednesday, CNE chairperson Joao Leopoldo da Costa claimed that none of the more than 20,000 Renamo polling station monitors had made any complaints during the voting and initial count.
Macuiana said this was untrue, and much of the Renamo documentation consisted of precisely such complaints. He said that the real problem was that many returning officers at the polling stations expelled Renamo monitors during the voting or the count.
Even more seriously, in some districts the two members of the District Elections Commissions appointed by Renamo were thrown out of the meetings discussing the results. He cited as examples the districts of Tsangano (in Tete province) and of Sussundenga (in Manica province).
Macuiana said that Renamo protested against such exclusions to the CNE, and the CNE ordered the district commissions to readmit the Renamo members - but that only happened a day later.
Perhaps the most serious case was the district of Maravia, also in Tete, where the two Renamo members of the commission were chased out of the district, and their houses destroyed. Macuiana said that such violence had very serious effects on their morale.
Macuiana also said that Renamo had submitted evidence of ballot box stuffing. The strongest evidence is nine extra ballot papers which a Renamo monitor had seized from a voter before she could deposit them in the ballot box at a polling station in the northern district of Mozambique Island.
Although the Renamo monitor was briefly detained by the police, he managed to hold on to the ballot papers, which Renamo showed to the media at a press conference earlier this month.
The ballot papers certainly look genuine, which means there was a serious breach in security. The CNE can, if it is interested in taking measures against electoral fraud, check exactly where these ballot papers came from through their serial numbers.
Macuiana said that the Mozambique Island incident was not an isolated case, and that ballot papers found their way into the hands of Frelimo supporters before voting began in several other districts. He cited in particular Angoche, in Nampula province, and Mossurize, in Manica.
No copies of the Renamo appeal were made available for the media, but Macuiana promised to provide copies later in the week.
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