Podemos claims victory in parallel count of Mozambique election results

MAPUTO, Mozambique

The Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), which supported the independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, in the presidential election of 9 October, has published its parallel count of the votes, which gives a clear victory to Mondlane and to Podemos itself.

The results from the parallel count, for the four presidential candidates, were as follows:

• Lutero Simango (MDM): 379,247 (4.92 per cent)

• Daniel Chapo (Frelimo): 2,906,601 (35.66 per cent)

• Venancio Mondlane (independent): 4,419,040 (53.38 per cent)

• Ossufo Momade (Renamo) 539,515 (6.04 per cent)

It is quite impossible to reconcile these figures with the official results released last Thursday by the National Elections Commission (CNE).

According to these results, Chapo enjoyed an overwhelming victory with over 70 per cent of the votes, with Mondlane a distant runner-up, with 20.3 per cent.

In the parliamentary election, Podemos claimed that its parallel count gives it a sizeable majority in the new parliament. It will have 138 out of the 250 seats, compared with 91 for Frelimo, 12 for Renamo and seven for the MDM.

By comparison, the CNE’s official results allocated 195 seats to Frelimo, and just 55 to the opposition parties.

The parallel count forms part of the Podemos appeal against the results to the Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law. But it should be noted that, just like the CNE’s results, the Podemos count is not accompanied by any polling station results sheets (“editais”).

Podemos says it has most of the genuine editais, but so far it has not published them. It is possible, however, that the results sheets are included in the vast amount of documentation that Podemos has submitted to the Constitutional Council, and that the Council will consider them.

Without the editais, it would be unwise to declare either the CNE’s results or the Podemos parallel count as correct.

Podemos admits that it does not have all the editais. The Podemos count is of 71.7 per cent of the polling stations. Although Podemos believed this is “a very credible sample”, it falls well short of 100 per cent.

Podemos says it could not cover all the polling stations because in some cases the electoral bodies refused to issue credentials for its monitors, in others the credentials were stolen and the CNE refused to issue new ones, and in still others the credentials were for districts other than the ones requested.

At some polling stations, the staff illegally refused to announce the results of the count or to sign the results sheets (“editais”).

Worse still, there were cases where the results of the count were fraudulently altered. In others, the editais from different polling stations were filled in and signed by the same person. Such clearly fake results sheets could not be used for the parallel count.

Podemos says it is appending the “manifestly fraudulent minutes and editais” in its appeal to the Constitutional Council as proof of election fraud.