Africa-Press – Mozambique. The count at the polling stations, immediately after Mozambique’s municipal elections on Wednesday, “took place in an orderly manner, despite the climate of tension”, according to a report from the “Sala de Paz” (“Peace Room”), a Mozambican civil society election monitoring forum.
But there were exceptions to the orderly count noted in most municipalities. Those exceptions, said the report, released on Thursday, were in “some cities with a high level of competition and potential for electoral conflict, such as Maputo, Matola, Beira, Quelimane and Nampula”.
In these cities, “the dynamic was rather different, and isolated facts were reported that could affect the integrity and transparency of the process”.
One of these “isolated facts” was the interruption in the supply of electricity during the count to parts of Maputo, Quelimane and Nampula. It has previously been accepted that, since power cuts in Mozambican cities are a frequent occurrence, there is nothing suspicious about these cuts.
But it is certainly strange that power cuts appear to happen at every election, even though the publicly owned electricity company, EDM, has greatly improved its overall performance in recent years.
There were also restrictions in access to the Internet and to social media, particularly to Facebook and WhatsApp, described by “Sala da Paz” as “platforms widely used by citizens to share election information. In an electoral context, these tools are of capital importance for establishing evidence, and contributing to the credibility of elections”.
The report noted that in one Quelimane polling station, the station chairperson, in violation of the election law, prevented journalists and observers from observing the count.
In several other Quelimane polling stations, the chairpersons and deputy chairpersons refused to sign the minutes of the count, apparently because they did not like the results.
This led to violent incidents, and in at least one case voters, including the Renamo mayoral candidate (not named, but the report is clearly referring to Manuel de Araujo), to force the chairperson to sign the minutes.
The report says the police fired into the air in order to restore calm.
Polling station chairpersons also refused to sign minutes in Maputo. This may have contributed to the lengthy delays in concluding the count. The polling stations were supposed to close at 18.00, but in some cases the count continued until 02.00 the following morning.
Polling station staff (MMVs) at a Maputo school physically assaulted Coutinho Macanandze, a journalist from the private television station, TV Sucesso, while he was reporting on the count.
The report said this violated the country’s legislation on press freedom, intimidates journalists, and might damage the transparency of the elections.
The “Sala da Paz” urged the electoral management bodies to handle subsequent elections “with maximum integrity and transparency in order to guarantee that the election results are credible to all the competing forces and to society in general, and to avoid incidents of violence”.
“It is essential to accept the results as an expression of the voters’ choice”, the report added.
In the event of any legitimate concerns about the results, “we urge all political stakeholders to resort to the legal mechanisms for resolving electoral disputes”, it declared.
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