Maputo — The Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the Mozambican civil service, on Tuesday, launched a book on the 1999 general elections, accompanied by a CD-ROM containing the detailed results.
When the results were announced, in late December 1999, it was only national and provincial results that were given.
The STAE CD-ROM now provides the public, for the first time, with the results broken down, not only by district, but also by each assemblage of polling stations. This makes it much easier for researchers to compare the 1999 results with those from the first multi-party elections, held in 1994.
At the Maputo launching ceremony, STAE general director Antonio Carrasco aplogised for the delay in publication, blamed largely on shortage of resources. The publication has cost about 35,000 US dollars, provided by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and other donors who supported the 1999 elections.
Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi told the gathering that the government remains determined "to consolidate democracy in Mozambique", as well as to "consolidate peace". He regarded the new publication as part of this work.
He stressed that "holding elections of high quality cannot be achieved just with funds from Mozambican taxpayers", and appealed to foreign donors to continue their support for Mozambican elections.
He added that without the financial assistance of the international community, "we would have had enormous difficulty in organising elections".
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Mocumbi also praised donors for supporting the government's poverty alleviation efforts.
"Poverty must be reduced as quickly as possible in order to consolidate democracy and economic development", he said.
"Without tackling poverty, our democratic institutions will remain fragile".
In addition to the results, the STAE publications include all the key documents - the electoral legislation that governed the 1999 poll, sample ballot papers, and the voter education material. It also includes the appeal against the results by the Renamo-Electoral Union opposition coalition, and the Supreme Court ruling which rejected the appeal.
Two and a half years after the election, Renamo and its allies still claim they were deprived of victory by fraud - and this perhaps explains why nobody from Renamo or any of the ten minor parties in the Electoral Union attended the Tuesday launch.
STAE sent invitations to all registered political parties.
The ruling Frelimo Party sent a delegation, and leaders of several opposition parties not linked to Renamo attended. But of Renamo and its coalition partners there was no sign.
