The district director of STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) in Quelimane had a secret agreement with one of his deputies, appointed by Renamo, to grant him 32 places to be filled by registration brigade members from Renamo. But the agreement failed because, four days after the start of voter registration, the head of the Department of Organisation and Electoral Operations (ROOE) decided to transfer some of the Renamo brigade members to other registration brigades. The decision did not please the STAE Deputy Director, who “has his own staff, including his wife (placed as a supervisor in the 17 September EPC) in these brigades”. And so a conflict broke out.
A Zambezia Province Multi-sector Commission of Inquiry was establsihed. It concluded that the head of ROOE, Vitorino Azevedo, justified the change of brigade members with the argument that he had made a short study which he shared only with the district director, Assane Ussene, excluding the deputy heads of the ROOE representing Frelimo, Renamo and the MDM. In fact, the head of the ROOE was obeying an instruction from director Assane Ussene.
Believing that he had been betrayed by the decision of the STAE District Director, taken without his consent, the Renamo Deputy Director, Maia Madeira Maia, decided to block the transfer of the brigade members, claiming that the decision was “poisoned because it had not been discussed in the ROOE”, before being submitted to the leadership collective.
For his part, STAE District Director Ussene, seeing his authority called into question by his deputy, decided to go into the field to put his decision into operation by dismissing the brigade members concerned. The deputy director then retaliated, by filming the moment when his director sacked the brigade members from his party’s area of influence “to be used as evidence of the arbitrary behaviour of the district director”.
Maia Madeira Maia told the Multi-sector Commission of Inquiry that the prelude to the transfers occurred on 21 April, just a day after the start of voter registration, when he received from the head of the ROOE, Vitorino Azevedo, a message, at 05.30, informing him that brigade members would be moved to meet the demand for their services.
In response, Maia told the head of the ROOE that this decision would not be possible unless it was supported by a prior study of the performance of the brigade members to be moved, since only a day had passed since the start of registration. In fact, the decision was put into operation on 24 April. Four days had elapsed since the start of voter registration.
Because of this, the Commission that carried out the inquiry recommended disciplinary proceedings against the two directors “for proven lack of transparency in the selection of brigade members”, which affected the voter registration. It concluded that it was “lack of transparency in the selection of brigade members” which led to the struggle between the director, Assane Ussene, and his deputy, Maia Madeira Maia (from Renamo), for control over the area of party influence, which contributed to “the poor performance of voter registration” in Quelimane.
Both are facing disciplinary proceedings “for proven lack of transparency in the selection of brigade members”, which affected compliance with the voter registration targets”. Assane Ussene has resigned and will be replaced by Lourenço Francisco Álvaro Fato, a member of staff at the Zambezia provincial STAE delegation.
Agreement was made five days before the registration
It all began on 15 April, in Quelimane, during the selection of brigade members for the voter registration, due to begin on 20 April. On that date, Maia Madeira Maia, the deputy director representing Renamo, sent a message to the STAE district director, Assane Ussene, requesting that he be given 32 of the 52 places for brigade members. He threatened that, if this did not happen, “he had sufficient evidence to tarnish the process” and that he “would not allow the list of trainees to be fixed”.
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The same report said that the district director, Assane Ussene, feeling under pressure, gave up the 32 places for brigade members in the areas of influence of the two men (the director and his deputy). But, during the registration, it was claimed that the Renamo brigade members tended to have “greater difficulty in handling the computers" (known as Mobile-IDs) than those recruited int eh normal way. This resulted in longer queues, and complaints about the attendance of citizens who wanted to register..
