CNE results show 170,000 fake votes for Frelimo and Chapo
The election results announced Thursday by the National Elections Commission (CNE) show 170,000 fake votes for Frelimo and Chapo. Yet again, the numbers talk, and tell a story of fraud.
Each voter arrives and is given three ballot papers, one for each of the three elections. There are three separate ballot boxes and no one reports voters who put ballot papers in one box and not the others. Yet the CNE reports that in Zambézia, 56,000 voters put ballot papers in the box for parliament (Assembleia da Republics) but not for President. In Inhambane, 6% of voters supposedly voted for parliament but not for President, and no one noticed.
We argue that the CNE numbers tell a different story. Clearly, all voters voted in all three elections, but some posted extra ballot papers in one election, or election staff added extra votes when writing up the results sheets. The seven members who voted against accepting the results cited precisely these dubious numbers. But the CNE majority and its chair, Bishop Carlos Matsinhe, accepted such obviously impossible numbers. But numbers talk, and they tell a story of 170,000 fake votes.
In all 11 provinces the difference between Chapo's vote for president and Frelimo's for parliament was small but generally with Chapo gaining more votes. In two provinces, however, Zambezia and Inhambane, the CNE tables show 111,000 extra votes went into the parliamentary race, and clearly went directly to the Frelimo list. In those two provinces, Frelimo was clearly anxious to keep and gain parliamentary seats. And they were right - without those extra ballots, Frelimo would have lost one seat to Podemos.
In Maputo province, where Venancio Mondlane did well last year, Frelimo was worried and put an extra 31,291 votes into the presidential contest. Nampula and Tete are two other provinces where Frelimo wanted to put more votes into the presidential election and back Chapo.
Thus the data shows that Frelimo stuffed 170,000 extra votes and was able to choose in which contest to use the that extra power. We may not have seen them being stuffed, but the CNE approved numbers told us where they were.
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The CNE made only one change, to Sofala
The Constitutional Council has reduced the CNE's formal power, making it clear that the CNE is only a glorified post box, receiving provincial editais, adding them up, and announcing the results. And a careful comparison of the numbers shows that, with one exception, the CNE has followed the provincial editais closely. The one exception is Sofala province, where the official results had an extra 5,499 votes for the presidential election, and they were given to Frelimo. But as its only action, the CNE discovered an extra 6,016 votes to add to the parliamentary election, and restore the balance, leaving the difference between parliamentary vote and presidential vote of just .517. To not cause problems with various tables and sums, the CNE added 2,463 to the nulos, 4806 to the brancos, and 401 to Renamo.
Because the CNE acts in secret, and no explanation was given, there was no statement made to say why Sofala, and only Sofala, was corrected. And no one knows where the 6016 votes came from. And the change was only discovered because CIP Eleições did such a careful comparison of the CNE and provincial tables.
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CNE and CC can still intervene because Frelimo power is a "substantial" matter
A Frelimo goal has been to obtain more than three-quarter of the seats in parliament, 189, because that would give them unilateral power to change the constitution. According to the CNE declaration of the results, they now have 195 seats. We show above that 1 is clearly improper. After registration was completed, we calculated that Gaza and Inhambane had a total of 7 extra seats because of ghost voters - that is, where more voters are registered than voting age adults. (CIP Eleições 266, 16 May 2024).
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Simply removing the seats for the ghosts will reduce Frelimo seats in parliament to 189, and taking out Frelimo's extra seat in Zambezia would take it back to 188 - losing the power to change the constitution.
That is important because the electoral law (Lei no 15/2024 de 23 de Agosto, art 196) says that "Voting at any polling station … shall only be judged null and void if there have been illegalities that could substantially influence the overall result of the elections." Obviously Frelimo ability to unilaterally alter the constitution is a "substantial" issue to be decided by the outcome of this election - and by the CC and CNE.
