59 shot in Maputo with 3 killed
On the last day of the third phase of the demonstrations opposing the election results, Thursday 7 November, 59 people were shot by police, three of whom died.
One of the deaths was a young man at the crossroads between Avenida de Angola and Avenida Joaquim Chissano. Another was a young man shot by a member of SERNIC.
Public, private and political party infrastructures were attacked and looted or destroyed:
· KaMaxaquene municipal command attacked. Four tractors, a pump, three vehicles, and the command building itself were destroyed.
· The Aeroporto neighbourhood secretariat was sacked and burnt.
· In the Maxaquene C neighbourhood goods of the ONGD were vandalised and looted. 15 bicycles and various computers and mobile phones were stolen
· Property of the OK stores in Maputo city was vandalised and looted
· A Vodacom shop and mast were destroyed.
Thursday was intended to be a mass demonstration with large number of people congregating in the centre of Maputo. The police were trying to stop demonstrators from congregating, and they were prevented from going from Matola to Maputo, and through Maxaquene on roots from outer neighbourhoods.
A video of police tear-gassing peaceful protestors on Av Eduardo Mondlane and in Maxaquene, both Maputo, is on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwHalPDoiWY
In Matola the Matola Supermarket was vandalised and goods were looted in Malhampsene. In Inharrime, Inhambane, three electricity transformer posts were burned, and restoring them will cost Electricidade de Mocambique (EDM) about $500,000. Also in Inharrime, 40 demonstrators were detained, but were released on Saturday. At the end of the day, the district commander ordered that they be detained again and taken to the PGR.
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Last polling station results sheets delivered to CNE and submitted to CC on Friday
CNE chair Bishop Carlos Matsinhe, received on Friday the last missing results sheets (“editais”) before submitting them to the Constitutional Council. These are results sheets from Inhambane province which had not yet been delivered. Also on Friday, Matsinhe was to channel the entire process to the Constitutional Council, which had given him a deadline of 8 days, and Friday, 8 November, was the last day.
The opposition representatives on the Constitutional Council doubt the veracity of the information contained in the polling station results sheets sent. The editais may have been adulterated, since information is circulating that many editais had disappeared and others were found in the offices of the Frelimo Party in Chimoio, for example, and others were found in a rubbish tip.
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Podemos rejects Constitutional Council ruling on its appeal
Podemos, Renamo and Pahumo appealed to the Constitutional Council (CC) to return parts of the tabulation to the National Elections Commission (CNE) because it had failed to take into account evidence of fraud. Instead the CC said it would include the information in its own consideration of the results.
Podemos regards the ruling as unjust and illegal and says “it should be deemed null and void”. Podemos had requested the annulment of the decision and that (1) the CNE should be ordered to repeat the general count, (2) the election should be annulled in the districts where the Podemos monitors were prevented from inspecting the count, (3) the elections should be annulled in the districts where there are numerical discrepancies, (4) the CDEs should be officially requested to provide the minutes of the intermediate count, to check whether or not the Podemos monitors were invited (5) request from the CNE the minutes and editais used for the general count (…) to confront them with the minutes and editais of Podemos. The Constitutional Council issued a ruling which remits the final decision on these points to the phase of validating the election results.
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Let the numbers talk - 3
In Gaza, even the ghosts boycotted
The CNE and its chair Bishop Carlos Matsinhe definitely believe in ghosts and allow them to vote. But in most parts of Gaza, even the ghosts did not vote for Frelimo. Nevertheless, Gaza has six extra parliamentary seats entirely for ghosts, which could be enough to push Frelimo over three-quarters of AR seats. That would allow Frelimo to change the constitution unilaterally. So the ghosts are doing their job, even without voting.
Gaza has only 800,000 voting age adults, but 1.2 million voters registered, which means 400,000 voters - one-third of all voters - are ghosts. Because the National Elections Commission (CNE) does not allow an audit of the voters roll, it is impossible to check on the ghosts.
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The table below shows that Gaza is sharply divided. The more sparsely populated northern part of Gaza really is Frelimostan. There are seven districts which all have a turnout over 86%, which includes many ghosts, and more than 97% vote for Frelimo.
Chokwe is a larger urban area and has the highest proportion of ghost voters - with 98,000 registered ghost voters. That means that for every 3 adults, there are 2 ghosts. There must be ghosts everywhere in the city. In Chokwe 88% vote for Frelimo.
However two-thirds of registered voters and two-thirds of voting age adults live in the more urbanized south of Gaza. Most of the ghosts are there too, but these ghosts did not vote. Turnout in Mandlakaze, Xai Xai and Chibuto was 34%, 35% and 36%, some of the lowest in the country, and that included some ghost voters. That looks very much like a boycott aimed at Frelimo.
There were observers in a quarter of Chibuto polling stations, and in the 75 observed, 23 had a turnout of 10% or fewer; in Mandlakaza 9 observed polling stations had turnout under 10%: and in Xai Xai 6 observed polling stations had a turnout of under 6%. Chibuto had one polling station with a turnout of only 2.6%; only 12 people voted, 7 for Chapo and 5 for Mondlane. Clearly, the ghosts were not voting.
