Agencia de Información de Mozambique (AIM)    November 13, 2024

   Appealing against the preliminary results, announced by the National Elections Commission (CNE) on 24 October, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) stressed that its monitors were deprived of their rights at the polling stations.

   The polling station staff (MMVs), it accuses, refused to accept protests, and refused to distribute copies of the polling station minutes and results sheets (“editais”). The MDM accused staff of falsifying editais not only at the polling stations, but during the district and provincial counts.

   It noted that, in Maputo province, and particularly in Matola city, MMV trainers were also working as polling station chairpersons, even though the CNE had explicitly prohibited this.

   Renamo, which was once the largest opposition party, said ballot papers filled out in advance were circulating beyond the control of the election management bodies.

   Discrepancies were found between the number of voters registered in polling stations and the number of ballot papers in the ballot box.

   Podemos (Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique) also noted polling stations where more people had supposedly voted than were registered as voters.

   In the provincial count, Podemos said, political party monitors were not invited to observe in Tete, Manica, Sofala and Gaza.

   Podemos, Renamo and the MDM all noted the glaring discrepancies between the number of people who voted in the three elections (for President, parliament and the provincial assemblies). The elections were held simultaneously, and each voter received three ballot papers.

   In each polling station, the three ballot boxes should have contained the same number of votes. But repeatedly there were inexplicable discrepancies which, when counted at district level, ran into tens of thousands of votes.

   All these problems were postponed. The Constitutional Council said they would be included “in the process of validating the election results, since there is no real possibility of analysing them without the Constitutional Council pronouncing on the validity or otherwise of the electoral process”.