The Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) observation mission to the Mozambican general elections highlighted on Friday the “orderly voting” in Mozambique’s general elections, noted the existence of “disparities” and listed recommendations for the future.
“The voting process was orderly and organised, with Mozambican voters exercising their right to vote in a peaceful environment,” said the head of the mission, João Cravinho, in a preliminary statement to the field observation of Wednesday’s elections.
The head of the CPLP mission also emphasised that the observers were not constrained in their actions and took the opportunity to praise the performance of the electoral management bodies and the security forces.
However, the former Portuguese foreign minister pointed out that the mission “noted great disparities in the number of party delegates, with one party [Frelimo] typically represented by two delegates at practically every table, while other parties had a smaller presence”.
On the other hand, it also pointed to “uneven compliance with the provisions of the law, particularly with regard to counting procedures” and a “slowness” in the publication of official results, with observers getting “the impression” that this resulted from “the excessive complexity and inefficiency of the procedures”, but also from “the choices made in some polling stations”.
The CPLP mission listed several recommendations for future elections, from encouraging greater participation by party delegates and strengthening the training of polling station staff to better verifying the correspondence between votes cast and discharges recorded on the voters’ lists and speeding up the tabulation and publicising of results.
The general elections in Mozambique – which took place on Wednesday and included the seventh presidential elections, at the same time as the seventh legislative elections and the fourth elections for provincial assemblies and governors – are being marked by allegations of irregularities on the part of the opposition.
At least 20 people were arrested in northern Mozambique due to electoral offences recorded during voting in the general elections on Wednesday, different Mozambican police sources told Lusa on Thursday.
Nonetheless, the independent presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, declared himself the winner of the presidential elections that day, based on the results of the voting minutes and notices processed by his candidacy, reporting an “overwhelming, convincing and unequivocal” victory.
Running in this presidential election are Lutero Simango, supported by the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM, the third largest parliamentary force); Daniel Chapo, supported by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, in power since 1975); Venâncio Mondlane, supported by the extra-parliamentary Podemos party; and Ossufo Momade, supported by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party).
If there is no second round, the National Electoral Commission publishes the presidential election results within 15 days. Then, the Constitutional Council validates them. The Constitutional Council has no deadlines for proclaiming the official results after analysing any appeals.
The vote included legislative seats (250 deputies) and seats for provincial assemblies and their respective provincial governors, in this case, with 794 mandates to be distributed. The CNE approved lists of 35 political parties running for parliament and 14 political parties and groups of voting citizens for the provincial assemblies.
