General Elections 88 – 29 October 2019
There were only 58 protests in just three provinces over the election, and nearly all of them were rejected, reported the Supreme Court today. Despite widespread complaints, opposition parties apparently made no protests in 7 of the other 8 provinces
But there have been 464 prosecutions for electoral crimes. Fourteen people have been convicted of ballot box stuffing or voting more than once, 7 were acquitted, and 44 are still to be tried. Most criminal cases related to damaging posters and other material, with 116 convicted, 90 acquitted, and 66 still to be tried. Of the 52 people accused of disturbing polling stations, 44 were acquitted and 8 convicted. Most cases came from Nampula (145) and Zambézia (114).
The law distinguishes between electoral crimes, which are treated as any other crime and handled by the public prosecutor, and protests or challenges to the conduct of the elections, which are treated specially by the courts. District tribunals operate 24 hours a day and any challenges must be made to a district count with 48 hours of the posting of the results at the polling station; a ruling there can be appealed directly to the Constitutional Council, which is also the senior electoral court.
Supreme Court spokesperson Pedro Nhatitima said that all of the protests made in Zambézia were not included in this list because they were rejected because they were of electoral crimes, not of polling station procedures. Thus ballot box stuffing is a crime, and therefore not subject to a protest. But the position of the courts seems confused because the Zambézia provincial court issued a summary sheet which says that Renamo and MDM protested against multiple voting in 36 polling stations in Alto Molocue. but the protest was rejected because if was submitted on 18 October, more than 48 hours after the results were posted – not because this is a crime and not subject to a protest. And a protest about ballot box stuffing in Chinde was transferred to the prosecutor’s office.
The 58 protests came from Nampula (41), Maputo (13) and Sofala (4).Most were presented by Renamo. Of those, 55 were rejected, most because they were submitted more than 48 hours after results were posted, and some for lack of evidence. Six, from Ilha de Moçambique, Lalaua, Búzi, Beira, Manhiça and Matola, have been appealed to the Constitutional Council. Two cases are still under consideration. In one of the appeals, Renamo says that in a Nacala polling station, staff had deliberately invalidated Renamo votes by adding extra marks to the ballot paper, to make it look as if the voter had tried to vote for more than one candidate.
One case was “partially accepted”, where Renamo had protested against a polling station results sheet from Mecuburi, Nampula, which showed 876 votes, when in reality only 292 people had voted.
