Maputo — European Union election observers noted "numerous irregularities" during the count at polling stations during Mozambique's general and provincial elections of 28 October - but the EU mission estimates that this malpractice did not significantly affect the results.

A statement issued by the EU Election Observation Mission on Wednesday says that in polling stations across the country returning officers refused to accept complaints from monitors of the political parties.

The returning officers who behaved in this way were guilty of a criminal offence. The polling station manual, which all polling station staff received, lists a number of electoral crimes, including "refusing to receive claims, protests or counter-protests from political party delegates".

The EU mission's brief statement does not list the polling stations where its observers saw this behaviour - but if it provides the National Elections Commission (CNE) and the Constitutional Council with such information, that should make prosecutions possible.

EU observers also received copies of six complaints from political parties referring to the voting and the count in Lichinga (Niassa province), Chimoio (Manica), Quelimane (Zambezia), Mutarara and Angonia (both in Tete).

These complaints were officially received by the polling station staff. Yet when CNE chairperson Joao Leopolda da Costa announced the results on 11 November, he said that the CNE had not received any complaints. So it seems as if the returning officers in the six cases mentioned by the EU simply failed to pass on the complaints to their superiors.

The EU observers also saw polling station staff illegally ban political party representatives from attending the count in four Tete districts (Maravia, Angonia, Changara and Tsangano) and in parts of Manica and Cabo Delgado provinces.

Despite the CNE's promises of transparency, EU observers themselves were barred from the district count in several districts, and from the provincial count in Tete, Niassa, Cabo Delgado and Nampula. In other words, there was no standard procedure - in seven provinces the observers could watch the count, and in four they could not.

The EU observers also noted the statistical impossibility achieved in dozens of polling stations where staff claimed that every single registered voter had voted. In an election where average turnout was 44 per cent, the EU mission came across turnouts of 100 per cent (or more than 100 per cent) in 40 polling stations in Gaza province, 61 in Tete, and two on Mozambique Island (in Nampula).

Anyone who takes results sheets with 100 per cent turnout seriously is claiming that in these parts of the country no voters died since registration began in September 2007, nobody was kept at home by illness on 28 October, and nobody moved out of the districts concerned.

On Mozambique Island, the EU mission, notes, there were signs of ballot box stuffing, as shown by "discrepancies between the number of ballot papers for each of the three elections" (presidential, parliamentary and provincial), and "discrepancies between the results announced after the count and the results that were publicly posted outside the polling station".

Furthermore there were a large number of invalid votes which bore signs of having been deliberately invalidated. This is the only type of fraud which Costa publicly recognised when he announced the results.

He admitted that ink marks had been added to ballot papers to make it looks as if voters had tried to vote for two candidates. The CNE has promised to notify the Attorney-General's Office of this.

All polling station staff were warned against vote tampering during their training, and the polling station manual states that "distorting, replacing, suppressing, stealing, destroying, or altering the electoral registers, ballot papers, polling station minutes, results sheets or any other electoral material or documents" is a crime.

Although the irregularities did not significantly alter the outcome of the elections (given the huge scale of the victory for the ruling Frelimo Party and for incumbent president Armando Guebuza), the EU mission warns that "they constitute a serious weakness".

Furthermore, the polling stations with 100 per cent turnout in Gaza and Tete may have altered the distribution of parliamentary seats in those two provinces.

The EU Mission promises to publish a full report of the elections, with detailed analysis, after the results have been validated by the Constitutional Council - which might not occur until early January.