Maputo — Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE) on Wednesday ordered the preventive suspension of officials from its executive arm, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), in the central city of Beira, according to a report carried by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP).
Those allegedy suspended are the STAE district director in Beira, Nelson Carlos de Rosário, and all the STAE supervisors in the city's voter registration brigades, . They are accused of having set up a WhatsApp group in order to commit electoral crimes, to benefit the ruling Frelimo Party, and damage the opposition parties, during the voter registration.
According to CIP, the CNE found that Rosário, was administering a WhatsApp group that he had set up himself, under the name "STAE Supervisor Beira'. He set up that group on 20 April, the day that voter registration began, and added the supervisors as from 24 April.
CIP discovered the WhatsApp group, and published some of the messages exchanged between its members. These are damning since they show that the director and the supervisors, far from working towards free and fair municipal elections, were devising ways of favouring Frelimo.
From WhatsApp, we know that the first measure to block voters from the opposition was taken on 25 April, when Rosario instructed the supervisors to reject complaints from the monitors of the opposition parties stationed at the registration posts.
"Do not sign or accept the complaints from the monitors. We cannot facilitate them', he wrote. The instruction from Rosario was to make it as difficult as possible to register those whom he called "the enemy'. "The mission', according to Rosário "is to knock out the enemy', by which he clearly meant those who might not vote for Frelimo.
"Strike hard at the enemy were the words of our chief, our general staff. Today we are applying them', commented one of the supervisors, Gito Tomas Nhanombe, who urged his colleagues to block registration by those he called "monkeys'.
One of the supervisors adopted a system all of his own to block voters. This system consisted of demanding more documents than those required under the electoral laws from voters at his registration post, located in the Industrial Zone. "I have even demanded a work card from those who say they work at the port or railway', he boasted, declaring with pride "The circle is closed' against the opposition.
In one of the messages, the supervisor Gizela Patrício expressed concern that a large number of voters had registered in one of the posts and she exclaimed "I hope that at least 90 per cent are our comrades, who have registered, otherwise we are screwed'.
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Beira has long been a stronghold of the opposition, and its Municipal Council is currently in the hands of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
So Rosario and his fellow conspirators set themselves the task of "liberating' Beira. A supervisor named Evangelista Sanculane was irritated by colleagues who were insufficiently zealous.
"You have a mission to liberate the city from the anti-patriots', he wrote. But with this trembling at carrying out instructions, where are you going? If you can't bear it, resign while it's still early, instead of distracting us'.
Rosario expressed annoyance that his operations were being followed by observers, particularly those from CIP, whom he described as "great bandits'.
The CNE also decided that, as from this Thursday, the members of the CNE and technical staff from the central offices of STAE should travel to all the provinces for ten days, to supervise the voter registration.
The meeting also decided to put additional computers (known as "Mobile IDs') in the provinces where registration is going very slowly - Nampula, Zambezia, Sofala, Tete and Niassa.
The CNE ordered an extension of daily registration by two hours. Registration will now begin in all posts at 07.00, and end at 17.00. The previous registration hours were 08.00 to 16.00. Clearly the CNE hopes that more equipment and longer hours will minimise the problems of computer breakdowns and intolerably long queues.
