Mozambique: Bishops and EU Condemn Fraud, Protests, Numbers Can Talk

Catholic bishops say turnout low because voters know fraud means their votes don’t count

“Once again, there was gross fraud. Ballot box stuffing, forged results sheets and so many other ways of covering up the truth were repeated. The irregularities and fraud, which have been perpetrated with impunity, have reinforced the lack of trust in electoral bodies,” Catholic Bishops said in a statement Tuesday (22 October). “Irregularities and fraud recorded in previous elections have shown a large part of the population that their will, expressed at the ballot box, is not respected, making the exercise of this important civic right pointless.”

“We cannot allow political parties and power groups to continue to promote their harmful influences on the people, instilling policies of contempt, hatred and revenge or demonstrating a lack of values of respect for truth and honour,” the bishops conclude. https://bit.ly/Moz-El-Bishops

EU cites “irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level”

In a strongly worded statement, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) says EU observers were prevented to observe tabulation processes in some districts and provinces, as well as at the national level. Nevertheless, it “noted irregularities during counting and unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level. … The EU EOM considers that it is the responsibility of the electoral administration to clarify the irregularities and of the Constitutional Council to address them during the validation of results process, in respect of the will of voters.” https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eom-mozambique-2024/eu-eom-mozambiques-second-post-election-press-statement_en?s=410430

And the EU again took a hard line against the obsessive secrecy of the electoral processes.  Chief Observer Laura Ballarín stated that “the publication of disaggregated results by polling station is not only a matter of good practice, but also a strong safeguard for the integrity of results”.  The EU repeats its appeal to the election management bodies to conduct the count in a transparent and credible way, ensuring the verification of the results from the polling stations”, says the statement.

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CNE will announce results today or Thursday

On Tuesday (22 October), at 14.00, the centralisation of the election results began. On Wednesday, the CNE will meet in a general assembly to discuss and approve the election results.

If the general assembly is not prolonged into the night, the election results will be published on Wednesday. But in the event of a delay, and the discussions continuing late, the announcement of the results will be scheduled for Thursday, 24 October. The meeting could last longer, if there is no consensus among the members of the CNE.

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Let the numbers talk

Zambezia and Inhambane with more than 70,000 extra voters – evidence of ballot box stuffing?

The National Elections Commission (CNE) tries hard to keep numbers and changes to results secret, despite demands of the European Union and the Mozambican Bar Association for their publication. But the CNE has good reason for its secrecy, because if you listen, the numbers tell a story of fraud and misconduct. In this first of a series of articles, we compare the provincial results for all three elections. (CNE does not publish on its website provincial or district results, so these are the official results as collected by our correspondents.)

Everyone who votes collects ballot papers for all three elections – President, national parliament, and provincial assemblies. Although there are many reports of people putting extra ballot papers in the box. there a no reports of people voting in just one election and not putting ballot papers in the others. Some people put into blank or spoiled ballot papers, but they do vote.

Yet in Zambézia 81,673 more people voted that in the parliamentary election than in the provincial assembly election. And Frelimo had 58,102 more votes. That looks very much like evidence of ballot box stuffing.

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The ballot box stuffing makes a major difference. With the official numbers, national parliament seats for Zambezia are Frelimo 33, Renamo 6, and Podemos 3. But if the 58,102 extra votes are taken away, Frelimo loses two seats, and the result is Frelimo 31, Renamo 7, Podemos 3, and MDM 1. So we see ballot box stuffing from the official results, and also see if gave Frelimo 2 extra seats in parliament.

For Inhambane, there are 74,109 extra votes for national parliament, and Frelimo has 64,356 more votes, but because of the way the d’Hondt system works to allocate seats, the ballot box stuffing has not given Frelimo any extra seats. But the turnout in Inhambane ranges from 41% to 49%, depending on which election you look at, which is highly unlikely.

On the next page is the full table of all provincial results for all three elections, which shows many other anomalies. Frelimo’s manipulation means in all three elections it won in all provinces, giving it a ¾ majority in parliament and all provincial governors. Even though we do not accept the official results, we post them so some of the frauds can be seen.

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