Maputo — The Constitutional Council, Mozambique's highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, has ordered the National Elections Commission (CNE) to receive the nomination papers for parliamentary candidates from the Democratic Revolution (RD) party.
The RD, which is a breakaway from the main opposition party, Renamo, appealed to the Constitutional Council after the CNE had rejected its lists of candidates on the grounds that they had been delivered too late.
The period for delivering nomination papers ran from 13 May to 15.30 on 10 June.
The CNE delegated the reception of nomination papers to a "reception team'. If this team found that any candidate had incomplete or irregular paperwork, it should refuse to accept the nomination papers, but return them to the party concerned to be corrected within the next five days.
If any candidate should prove to be ineligible, his party had ten days to replace him on its list.
But the CNE must do this work itself, and cannot delegate the task to any team or commission or working group. The Constitutional Council said that the electoral legislation clearly states that it is the CNE which checks parliamentary candidates' nomination papers, including the authenticity of documents and the eligibility of each and every candidate to stand in the elections.
The law, the Council declared, does not allow the CNE to delegate these powers to any team or working group. For such delegation of powers to be legitimate, there must be provision for it in the electoral law. And there is no such provision.
The Council declared that the CNE decision on the delegation of powers is illegal.
It thus ordered the CNE to receive the nomination papers for the RD candidates, which will now be dealt with like any other candidates.
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This does not necessarily mean that the RD will be on the parliamentary ballot paper for the elections scheduled for 9 October. That will depend on whether the CNE detects any irregularities in its paperwork.
The Council threw out a second RD appeal, this time protesting against the rejection of its list of candidates for the provincial assembly in the central province of Tete.
This time the RD really did deliver its nomination papers beyond the deadline
Unlike parliamentary candidates, the nomination papers for provincial assembly candidates are inspected by the Provincial Elections Commissions, and must meet the deadline of 15.30 on 10 June.
The RD brought its paperwork to the Tete Provincial Elections Commission at 17.40 on 10 June - more than two hours past the deadline.
The Constitutional Council ruled that, because the RD had missed the deadline, the Provincial Elections Commission could not consider its candidates.
