Mozambique: Making sense of electoral chaos

MOZAMBIQUE
POLITICAL PROCESS
BULLETIN
Election e-mail special issue 38
Thursday February 2005
Editor: Joseph Hanlon ([email protected])
Deputy editor: Adriano Nuvunga
All back issues now on the web:
http://www.mozambique.mz/awepa/issues.htm

=========================================
IN THIS ISSUE
+ Personal view: clean up the mess
+ Numbers:
1,444 lost and stolen results sheets
Tete results changed by CNE
Nulos matter
+ Constitutional Council criticises CNE

--> There is an attached file with tables

=========================================
NOTES
When the remaining ministers are named in a few days
we will do a Bulletin on the new government
London meeting: Joe Hanlon speaking on the election.
King's College, Strand, Lecture Room 1B23, 1 Mar 6 pm
=========================================

PERSONAL VIEW:
WILL ANYONE CLEAN UP
THE ELECTORAL MESS?

Chaos, incompetence, secrecy and arrogance on the part of the National
Election Commission (CNE) are all shown in the ruling last month of the
Constitutional Council and in internal CNE documents released by Renamo.
Numbers don't add up, results were changed without explanation, crimes
were not investigated or prosecuted, and instructions from the
Constitutional Council were ignored.

A CNE member forcefully told AWEPA that its views, and those of other
observers, were unimportant. And at one level that is true. Frelimo's
landslide victory has been recognised by the international community, and
fraud and incompetence forgotten. Elections are largely for show, and the
US and other donors can tick the box saying Mozambique is democratic. But
at another level, it might be useful to pay some attention to the views
not just of outsiders but of the Constitutional Council.

International observers -- especially SADC parliamentarians and the
Commonwealth who should be seen as friends and neighbours -- all say that
Mozambique's elections are unusual for their sloppiness and secrecy. To
this is added a CNE which does not even pretend to publish accurate or
convincing results. Mozambique's ability to run an election well has
deteriorated, and no one seems to care.

These problems are compounded by the willingness of both Frelimo and
Renamo to commit blatant fraud and interfere with the process -- and to be
able to do so with impunity. The Constitutional Council in its ruling on
the election "considers it imperative and urgent that there be a change in
the attitudes of all protagonists in the electoral process in order to cut
off these dangerous tendencies at an early stage and prevent their spread."

The Constitutional Council said that some of the irregularities reported
by the press and observers were "truly criminal acts" which should be
punished under the electoral law. It warns that failing to punish these
acts would be even more serious than the crimes themselves, because it
would create a climate of impunity and "transform the law into a dead
letter." Electoral legislation is a fundamental pillar of the democratic
state. "If violations of the electoral law are allowed to go unpunished,
they will multiply and threaten the fundamental principles of our state."

Nevertheless, the CNE subsequently ruled that the essential evidence
should be destroyed, making prosecution impossible. The Constitutional
Council validated the election, so no one cares about the caveats.

Cleaning up the electoral system is hardly going to be a priority for the
new government, which has many important tasks on its agenda. Donors will
no doubt commission consultancy studies which remain unread and send
advisors who will be ignored. And in two or three years someone will
notice that local and provincial elections are due in 2008 and they will
rush to patch up the system again.

Perhaps it is for civil society, and organisations like the Electoral
Observatory, to take the issue away from the politicians who have made
such a mess of it. They could hold public hearings, take advice from
friends in SADC and the Commonwealth about how other countries run
elections, and promote changes. Who else has any interest in cleaning up
the electoral mess?

Joseph Hanlon

--------------------------------------

NUMBERS

(There is an attached file in Word with 4 tables. If you did not receive
this and want a copy, please send me a note. [email protected])

1444 EDITAIS NOT COUNTED

More than 5.5% of all polling stations were not included in the final
count, according to both the Constitutional Council and the National
Election Commission, although the two sets of numbers do not agree. That
means the ballots of nearly 200,000 people were not counted. The
Constitutional Council says that the editais (polling station results
sheets) "went astray", had ink poured on them, or contained irreconcilable
mistakes. The Council says that 699 presidential editais and 731
parliamentary editais were not counted in the final results. In fact, the
number is somewhat larger. Details are given in tables 1 and 2.

Adding up the CNE's detailed provincial results shows that 705
presidential editais and 739 parliamentary editais were not counted, out
of a total of 12,807 polling stations. The Constitutional Council figure
does not include polling stations outside Mozambique.

The Constitutional Council reports that editais were stolen when they were
being transported from polling stations to district level and then to
provincial election commissions in Niassa, Cabo Delgado and Zambezia. The
law allows the CNE to use the copies of editais given by polling stations
to party delegates, and these could have replaced those which were stolen
and those which had ink poured over them. But the CNE did not do this; no
reason was given. The Constitutional Council admitted that enough editais
have gone astray to have affected the number of seats in parliament, but
it decided there was nothing it could do.

The biggest thefts were in Cabo Delgado, where 21% of presidential editais
and 18% of parliamentary editais were not included in the final count.
Other seriously affected constituencies were:
Niassa (11% of presidential, 9% of parliamentary)
Africa outside Mozambique (10% of presidential, 13% of parliamentary)
Zambezia (7% of both)
Gaza (5% of parliamentary, 7% of parliamentary)
Tete (4% of presidential, 6% of parliamentary)

Gaza and Tete were both affected by ballot box stuffing, and some attempt
may have been made to exclude the more outrageous editais there. The CNE
says nothing.

+ Officially, the CNE continues to insist that the detailed provincial
results cited above are secret. The daily MediaFax has been asking the CNE
for copies, and the CNE refuses to even reply to the request. In fact,
they are available because Renamo included the final provincial editais,
as issued by the CNE, as part of its complaint to the Constitutional
Council, and this has been given to AWEPA and others who ask for it. The
CNE may be trying to keep the provincial results secret because they
contain mathematical errors.

CNE CHANGED TETE RESULT

Although it is not stated anywhere, the available documentation shows that
in secret the CNE changed the Tete result. Tete is particularly at issue
because there was widespread ballot box stuffing and improper restrictions
on observers and party delegates.

The Tete Provincial Election Commission issued its formal results on 11
December. It said that it had included 916 of 919 polling stations,
missing out 2 because of errors in editais and 1 because results did not
arrive from a rain-affected town. It said 341,197 people voted for
President, of whom 234,677 voted from Guebuza and 73,417 voted for
Dhlakama. This excludes invalid votes (nulos) which were requalified and
later included by the CNE.

But the still secret CNE provincial results sheet for Tete, which also
excludes nulos, only processed 882 of 919 editais. Yet it found more votes
-- 370,517 votes overall, of which 256,070 were for Guebuza and 76,464 for
Dhalakama. (Details are given in table 3)

There is a similar difference in the parliamentary race, and no
explanations as to how the CNE found more votes from fewer polling
stations. The electoral law says that final results should be based on
provincial results, and the CNE told international observers that it would
explain the changes it made to provincial results, but it has not done so.

NULOS MATTER

Polling station staff tend to be excessively strict in declaring ballot
papers invalid (nulo). Typically they have marks for more than one
candidate. But the vote should to be accepted if the intention of the
voters is clear, and all invalid votes are sent to the CNE for
reclassification. The CNE reconsidered nearly 290,000 ballot papers and
accepted almost one-third. This table gives the final figures:

President Parliament

Nulos 130,997 158,770
Requalified 42,682 48,813
% of nulos
requalified 33% 31%

Of total votes
% nulos 2.6% 3.3%
% blank 2.9% 5.0%

Manica, where the race was very close, shows that the requalification can
matter. In the parliamentary race, Renamo was behind by 1033 votes. But
when nulos were reconsidered, three quarters of those taken to be valid
were for Renamo, which was enough to give Renamo an 8 vote victory. In
this election it made no difference in the distribution of parliamentary
seats, but in a direct election such as for mayor, that would have made a
difference. (Details are in table 4)

----------------------

CONSTITUTIONAL COUNCIL
CRITICISES CNE

The Constitutional Council was highly critical of both the CNE and the
electoral law itself, but it validated the election. It said the CNE
needed to do a better job organising and supervising the election, and
that after 10 years the CNE was still unprofessional. The problems
identified by citizens, observers and others "persist and are repeated in
each election, without any significant improvement". It cites in
particular repeated problems with the electoral register and computer
software.

It criticised the lack of an accurate electoral register, saying it was
impossible to know how many people were actually registered. It noted that
the CNE had failed to carry out instructions from the Council after the
local elections to clean up the register.

The Council implicitly criticises the CNE for its lack of transparency to
observers, saying that in future "conditions must be created so that there
can be no doubts about the impartiality, integrity and strict legality of
the electoral processes at local, provincial and national level."

There were significant delays in distributing materials to polling
stations and polling station staff were not adequately trained. The
failure to produce district-by-district results was a violation of the law.

Parties are criticised for the lack of knowledge of the electoral law and
for the poor quality of their own monitoring, meaning they found out about
irregularities through the media rather than from their own delegates. It
particularly criticises their failure to file protests directly at local
level over polling stations with unrealistically high turnouts. (This is
perhaps slightly unfair, as Renamo had trouble getting delegates
accredited in Tete, where the biggest problems occurred.)

The Constitutional Council also criticised the electoral law, which it
said was internally contradictory and contains "unrealistic" deadlines,
for example for the approval of candidates.

It also said the time taken for the count is "excessively long",
especially compared to other countries.

The Council only made one change. After Renamo had already submitted its
lists of candidates to the CNE, it asked to change its Zambezia list to
move a sitting MP, Linete Olofsson, from 40th place on the list (which
would mean she would have no chance of being elected) to 27th place,
ensuring her a seat. The CNE agreed. But the Council said this action was
illegal because it was after the deadline for changes, so Olofsson was
moved back to 40th place and lost her seat.

The Constitutional Council ruling was approved by six of the seven
members, with Manuel Franque (a Renamo appointee) dissenting on the issue
of the missing editas. He said the numbers were significant in Niassa and
Cabo Delgado and must have had an impact on the distribution of parliament
seats. He also cites the problems with the data base and the computer
system, and concludes that "although I believe the elections were free,
they were not entirely transparent or just."

=============================
MOZAMBIQUE POLITICAL PROCESS BULLETIN
Editor: Joseph Hanlon ([email protected])
Deputy editor: Adriano Nuvunga
Material may be freely reprinted and circulated.
Please cite the Bulletin.
Published by AWEPA, the
European Parliamentarians for Africa
==========================================
TO SUBSCRIBE OR UNSUBSCRIBE
For the 1-2 December elections we are publishing frequent e-mailed issues
of the 'Mozambique Political Process Bulletin'. To SUBSCRIBE or
UNSUBSCRIBE:
1) Using your web browser, go to
http://mail-lists.open.ac.uk (note no "www")
2) enter your email address
3) you then see a list of Open University mailing lists.
Next to
dev-mozambiqueelection-list
click on SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE. That's all.
(Note there are 3 different lists. mozambiqueelection is the daily
bulletin.)
This mailing is the personal responsibility of Joseph Hanlon, and does not
necessarily represent the views of the Open University.
==========

?