Elvino Dias was killed preparing a draft of the Podemos appeal to the Constitutional Council
Elvino Dias was preparing a draft of the Podemos party's appeal to be submitted to the Constitutional Council as soon as the CNE announced the results. The CNE is expected to publish the results of 9 October general elections next Wednesday (23 October). With his assassination, the process may be jeopardised, but it will still go ahead. Other lawyers will step in to continue the work already started by the deceased.
Venancio Mondlane, had already called a general strike for tomorrow, Monday, and said simply that citizens should not go to work. But with the murders Mondlane has transformed the strike. He urged his supporters to gather at the site of the murders on Av Joaquim Chissano, Maputo, at 09.00 on Monday. Then a demonstration will set off at 10.00, marching through the streets of the city. He insisted that the march would be peaceful, and warned potential demonstrators not to do anything that might be interpreted as “vandalism”. The police had threatened to repress any disorder, “but we are not going to do anything disorderly”.
Mondlane accused the defence and security forces of killing his lawyer and advisor Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe, party agent of Podemos. He said the police had tried to hide their involvement by collecting spent cartridges from the scene of the crime, and seizing or damaging cell phones from potential witnesses.
Witnesses claim that when the police arrived did not allow an ambulance to take Guambe, then still alive, and the woman who was also shot, to the hospital.
The attack was very similar to the 7 October 2009 police hit squad murder of civil society and observer leader Anastácio Matavel in Xai Xai just before the elections five years ago. And Elvino Dias had warned recently on Facebook that he and Venâncio Mondlane were targets of death squads.
Interior Ministry and City Command contradict each other
In the first police statement yesterday, Lionel Muchina, spokesperson for the Maputo City Police Command, told a press conference that the victims were murdered by individuals with whom they had had an argument over "marital issues" at the Pulmão market in the Malhangalene neighbourhood, around 300 metres from where they were shot. Muchina said that after the argument, the individuals, whose names he would not reveal, followed the victims, blocking their car and then riddling them with bullets.
At the end of the day, Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda reacted to the murders of Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe and said that the authorities should clarify the case quickly. However, the spokesman for the Maputo City Police Command had already gone public to announce, without there having been an investigation, that Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe were murdered after a marital conflict. AIM reported today that "there was not the slightest evidence for this, apart from the fact that Dias had given a lift to a woman, Andacia Macuacua."
At the end of the day yesterday, Interior Minister Pascoal Ronda reacted to the murders of Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe and said "the government urges Sernic and the police to clarify these cases quickly and to bring the perpetrators to justice and make them accountable".
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'Electoral administration bodies discredit & tarnish the entire electoral process', says Bar Association
A damning indictment of the electoral administration was issued on Friday,18 October, by the Bar Association (Ordem dos Advogados). For example, it says the Constitutional Council cannot generate confidence in the electoral justice system, "not because it is a partisan body, but because its decisions do not, in substance, reflect any sense of fairness and balance."
"It was not to be expected that 30 years after the introduction of multi-party voting we would still be discussing ballot box stuffing, erased and false editais, the number of voters and votes above those registered at the polling station, and other basic electoral irregularities. All this is all the more serious given the total silence of the electoral administration bodies, which discredits and tarnishes the entire electoral process," the Bar Association says.
"The Mozambican Bar Association, within its statutory duties of defending the democratic rule of law, challenges and even urges the National Electoral Commission to publish all the tabulation minutes and editais - partial, intermediate and general - in order to remove any opacity present in the tabulation of votes. This will contribute to the credibility of the electoral process and the democratic legitimisation of those elected. Otherwise, our seriousness will be besmirched by mud."
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What changes will the CNE and CC make? Can it keep Renamo in 2nd place?
The official provincial and district results do not accurately represent the actual voting, but they do determine the composition of parliament, which also determines appointments to electoral and other commissions.
Frelimo will be pleased the they have won more than three quarters of parliament seats, because that will allow them to change the constitution. But Podemos is on course to become the second most voted party in parliament, which is the official opposition and receives significant money from government. Frelimo would clearly prefer to have a docile Renamo remaining in that position.
Parliamentary seats according to the official provincial results will be 195 for Frelimo, 31 for Podemos, 20 for Renamo, and 4 for MDM. The National Elections Commission (CNE) by law must check the invalid ballot papers and include in the count any that are really valid. And the CNE has always argued it has the right to change the results with no explanation, publicity, or record of the change. This has happened in all previous elections.
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Frelimo will want to keep its three quarters majority, which requires 188 seats, and also will not take so many seats from Podemos as to be obvious.
If the CNE only took 4 seats from Podemos in Nampula and Maputo Province and gave them to Renamo, the Podemos majority over Renamo would still be 27 to 24. One choice would be for Frelimo to give 4 seats of its own to Renamo, giving it a 28 to 27 margin. To not be grossly obvious, Frelimo could not take them from Podemos. The 4 seats might be taken from Gaza, Tete and Inhambane which had 87%, 85% and 78% votes for Frelimo. Many of those who voted in Gaza and Inhambane were ghosts.
Both Gaza and Tete have districts which are the healthiest in the world - everyone who registered last year is still alive and healthy and votes, and they all vote for Frelimo. Several districts are notorious for this occurring in every election. In Tete the healthiest are Marara (97% turnout, 99% Frelimo), Zumbu (95% turnout, 97% Frelimo), Changara (92%, 97%) and Macanga (92% , 96%),
In past elections the CNE has, of course in secret, removed some of those votes, leading to changes in the numbers of seats for the parties. So it might do that again.
