Distribution of money to parties by the CNE violated the law. We were wrong in Bulletin 60 (25 September) when we called that claim fake news. The CNE distributed funds in such a way that each candidate standing for the single seat in Africa received 345,000 MT ($5587), while each candidate for one of the 45 seats in Nampula received only 5,000 MT ($81).
The law (art 39 of law 2/2019) says that “distribution of state funds must take into account the proportion of candidates presented with respect to the seats to be filled”. The implication is that each candidate for parliament should received the same amount of state funds, but the CNE did not do this.
There are three elections – President, national parliament (AR), and provincial assemblies (APs) – and there is 60 million meticais ($972,000) in government money for parties for each election. The obvious decision would be to simply divide 60 mn MT between the 4 presidential candidates, 60 mn MT between the 5232 parliamentary candidates, and 60 mn MT between the 2863 AP candidates.
Party funds being distributed by CNE
That would give 15 mn MT ($242,915) to each presidential candidate, 11,468 MT ($186) to each AR candidate, and 20,957 MT ($339) to each AP candidate.
But the CNE instead decided that for AR and AP elections, money should first be divided between equally between constituencies – for AR there are 13 constituencies (11 provinces plus Africa and Europe) and for AP just 10 constituencies (the provinces except Maputo city which already has an elected municipal assembly). But Nampula has 45 AR seats and Zambézia 41, while Africa and Europe have 1 each, which means a huge variation in the amount of money for each candidate – not proportional as the law specifies.
The gainers are the three big parties, Frelimo, Renamo, and MDM, which gain 855,000 MT ($14,000 each), while nine small parties lose more than 450,000 MT ($39,000) each. MONARUMO loses one quarter of the money it would have received if the CNE had followed the law.
Monday is paid in three tranches, half to start, then one quarter when the first tranche has been accounted for, and then a final quarter. Claudio Langa, STAE spokesperson, said Thursday that the first and second tranches of the money – 75% – had been distributed to all parties.
We apologies again for our own fake fake news in bulletin 60, which we correct here. The distribution of funds is still secret, but CNE and STAE have confirmed the odd (and illegal) division first between constituencies. A full excel spreadsheet of our calculations is on bit.ly/El-MT.
The table in this like is a summary of our calculations.
