At the last minute on 30 May, President Filipe Nyusi vetoed revisions to the electoral law agreed by consensus by parliament a month earlier. The veto ensures Frelimo victory in elections on 9 October, even though it was over a seemingly minor technical point. The electoral law gives the National Elections Commission (CNE) and Constitutional Council (CC) the right to order recounts of votes. The 30 April approved law was a compromise, saying only the CC and CNE can order reruns, but district courts could order recounts, which Nyusi did not accept.
The change would have stopped Frelimo repeating the theft last year of municipal elections of Maputo and Matola. It seems likely that Frelimo in parliament (AR, Assembleia da República) simply had not noticed.
Renamo won by a large margin in municipal elections in Maputo and Matola, and Renamo was able to prove this by showing to this bulletin its copies of more than 1600 polling station results sheets (editais). District election commissions gave victory to Frelimo. Renamo appealed in one Maputo district, Mamubukwana, where the court accepted that editais submitted by the district election commission (CDE) were faked and written after the election. But the district court could do nothing. (The 20 Oct 2023 detailed ruling was published in Canal de Moçambique 25 October 2023.) And despite Renamo having proof of victory and the district court agreeing proof of forgery, the CC rejected the appeals and gave victory to Frelimo.
The law change would have given district courts the right to order recounts in this situation, which was much too dangerous for Frelimo. Meanwhile the CC argued that the constitution gives it total control of elections and argued vociferously that it would not give up that power. This reading of the constitution is contested by both the Supreme Court and the bar association (Ordem dos advogados). President Nyusi was apparently anxious to retain a compliant and all-powerful CC that would ensure a landslide victory on 9 October.
Both the CC and CNE act in total secrecy with no justification or explanation of their decisions. District-ordered recounts would have opened a window, and that could not be allowed.
The constitution (art 162) gives the President 30 days to promulgate or veto legislation, and Nyusi waited until the very last day to issue his veto, when parliament was no longer in session. This makes it impossible to contest in the short term and creates a number of calendar problems the law revision also tried to resolve.
There might be a special session of parliament, but without calendar changes and recounts to deal with, there are few remaining issues
