NO DECISION YET FROM CNE ON RE-RUN ELECTION IN SOME AREAS

Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) has yet to decide whether to re-run the general elections in those areas where polling stations did not open, or were sabotaged, on Wednesday.The law does allow for a repetition of the elections in such cases, and on a Wednesday night television panel CNE spokesperson Paulo Cuinica suggested this was precisely what the CNE would do in the case of four polling stations which failed to open in the northernmost province of Niassa.These stations are in the remote area of Lupilichi, near the Tanzanian border. Only 669 voters are registered there – but they have the same right to vote as any other Mozambicans, and it was no fault of theirs that the electoral bodies failed to bring the polling station staff and voting materials there.At a Thursday press conference, Cuinica could not state categorically that the election would be re-run here, only that it was a matter that the CNE will decide.Similarly with the case of polling stations destroyed by the former rebel movement Renamo in Tsangano district, in the western province of Tete. This was the most serious incident of violence during the election. Renamo supporters torched polling stations, destroying the ballot papers, and are also reported to have taken hostage three policemen and two polling station staff (though Cuinica was unable to confirm this detail).The CNE must also look at several other serious irregularities: for instance, in the coastal town of Angoche, where groups of Renamo youths also went on the rampage, polling station staff evacuated several polling stations for security reasons. This meant that the primary count could not take place at the polling stations, as dictated by the law.Instead, the staff put the ballot boxes and other materials on their heads and walked to the Angoche district offices of the CNE’s executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE). 

The count was then conducted at the STAE offices.Cuinica said this was justified since “the conditions did not exist to count the votes at the polling stations”. But the CNE will have to decide whether this was the right call, and if not, whether to re-run the election at these polling stations.Asked about claims by Renamo and by the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) that the elections were characterized by “generalized irregularities”, Cuinica said that so far the CNE has received no formal complaints from either of these parties.He pointed out that the opposition parties not only had monitors at the polling stations, but the main political parties (Frelimo, Renamo and the MDM) were each able to appoint a member of staff at each of 17,010 polling stations.In addition, the elections had been watched by national and foreign observers, and by a large number of Mozambican and foreign journalists. Cuinica thus had no doubt that, despite the violent incidents which took place, in general the election could be described as free and fair.