CNE / ONP / FRELIMO / RENAMO / MDM

The head of Mozambique’s parliamentary commission on constitutional and legal matters, Teodoro Waty, pledged on Tuesday that his commission will be strictly guided by criteria of legality and respect for the constitution, when it analyses the nomination papers of the 15 candidates for the three seats reserved for civil society organizations on the National Elections Commission (CNE) – including the controversial attempt by the current CNE chairperson, Joao Leopoldo da Costa, to secure a second term on the electoral body. Waty was speaking to reporters after a parliamentary hearing in which the 15 candidates answered questions from deputies concerning the CNE, and the contribution each of them could make to the electoral body. Costa was among those quizzed – despite the fact that the body which allegedly proposed him, the National Teachers Union (ONP), has disowned his candidacy, accusing those who proposed Costa of forging ONP documents.The outgoing CNE contains five nominees from political parties (three from the ruling Frelimo Party and two from the former rebel movement Renamo), and eight from civil society. But the new electoral law, approved in December, skews the composition of the CNE in favour of political parties, largely in order to accommodate the second opposition force, the MDM (Mozambique Democratic Movement).There will now be eight CNE members appointed by the political parties (five by Frelimo, two by Renamo and one by the MDM), a judge appointed by the Higher Council of the Judicial Magistracy, an attorney appointed by the Higher Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and only three nominees from civil society. 24 Nominations from civil society bodies were sent to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, where an ad-hoc commission drew up a short list of 16, which will eventually be submitted to the Assembly plenary which must elect, by secret ballot, just three of them to sit on the CNE.A shadow has been cast over this whole procedure by the fraudulent attempt to gain a second term for Costa. The ONP document supposedly proposing Costa was signed by Safira Stefane Mahanjae, who was elected to the ONP National Secretariat from the southern province of Gaza.

But the ONP President, Beatriz Muhoro, told reporters last week that Mahanjae had no power to sign any correspondence at all in the name of the union. Mahanjae has indeed been elected to the Secretariat, but has not yet taken office.The old secretariat of the ONP was dissolved on 26 March – a week before the meeting at which the ONP is supposed to have decided in favour of supporting Costa’s candidacy. The ONP’s new secretariat and National Council have not yet been sworn into office. “Currently it is only the union’s Presidency that is taking decisions”, Muhoro insisted. The ONP statutes are clear on this – while the new secretariat has not taken office, all its powers are exercised by the Presidency. The ONP has set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the full circumstances in which the fraudulent documents supporting Costa’s CNE candidacy were drawn up. Naturally, during the Tuesday hearing deputies asked Costa about this. He claimed he had nothing to do with the polemic. Costa insisted that he had been invited to stand by the ONP, and had simply accepted the nomination.This would have been a good moment for Costa to defend his good name and withdraw his candidacy. Instead, he said it was not up to him to withdraw his name, but up to those who had proposed him.
Waty tried to smooth the problem over, claiming that everyone in the controversy believed they had acted in good faith. “From what we could hear from the parties involved”, he told the reporters, “it seems that the candidate Joao Leopoldo da Costa believed that he was being proposed by somebody with the legitimacy to do so. The national secretariat of the ONP seems also to have believe that it has the legitimacy to nominate him, while the President of the ONP thinks that only she should present a candidate at this level”. Waty added that Costa’s candidacy would remain “until we adopt our opinion. The opinion has not yet been produced, and once produced, it must be adopted. Before it is adopted there will be a debate in the commission, and I believe we shall be guided in our opinion by respect for legality and the constitution”.Meanwhile one of the genuine civil society candidates, Benilde Nhalivilo, has withdrawn her name in disgust. Nhalivilo, a women’s rights activist, was proposed by the most credible civil society coalition, the Electoral Observatory. The Observatory consists of the main religious denominations (catholic, protestant and moslem), and a number of prominent NGOs, including the Human Rights League.Her letters to the Assembly, and to the Electoral Observatory, withdrawing her name stated, in obvious reference to the scandal surrounding Costa, that the attempt to legitimate candidates “in a dubious and unclear manner” showed “that there is a strong trend to place pre-determined people on the CNE”. “I do not want to see my image and my dignity, acquired over 20 years dedicated to the cause of human rights and to genuine civil society, associated to situations of lack of transparency and non –professionalism”.“This decision is not an act of weakness”, she added, “but an act of respect, transparency and justice, the values for which I have always fought. I would like to express my willingness and availability to represent civil society or the country in forums and processes as long as these are fair and transparent”.