Frelimo wins in 56 municipalities, but the vote will be repeated in four

This Friday, the Constitutional Council of Mozambique (CC) declared Frelimo, the ruling party, the winner of the October 11 municipal elections in 56 municipalities against the previous 64, with Renamo winning four, but ordered repeat elections in four.

According to the unanimously approved ruling, read in an hour and 45 minutes by the President of the Constitutional Court, Counselor Judge Lucia Ribeiro, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) maintained its victory in the country’s two main cities, Maputo and Matola. in which the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) declared victory despite the reduction of tens of thousands of votes from the total allocated to the party in power.

On October 26, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) of Mozambique, after conducting an interim and general vote count, declared Frelimo’s victory in 64 of the 65 municipalities that took part in the vote.

“The Constitutional Council assessed the substance of the issues, deciding, on the basis of sufficient evidence, to change the results of the general count in the municipalities of Matola Rio, Quelimane, Cura, Alto Molocue, Xai Xai, Matola, Marracuene, Vilanculo. and the city of Maputo,” he announced.

Reading out the ruling, Judge Adviser Lucia Ribeiro suggested that the Constitutional Court has “the necessary conditions to decide legally, legally and in conscience on the current local elections,” but she stressed that the announced results “will not be possible in the overall count” carried out CNE.

“Because during the period when centralization and counting of votes was carried out, the electoral dispute and disagreements caused by the inaccuracy and complexity of the current legislation were still ongoing in the Constitutional Council,” he suggested.

In a ruling promulgated this Friday, the Constitutional Court also overturned the results in Quelimane and Alto Molocue, province of Zambezia, Vilanculo, in Inhambane, and Cura, in Cabo Delgado, giving victory to Renamo, in addition to preserving the victory of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique in Beira. province of Sofala. In the province of Nampula, the Central Committee ordered a partial repeat of the vote in the municipality of Nacala Porto and in the province of Zambezia in the municipalities of Milange and Gurue, while in Marromeu, province of Sofala, the vote will have to be repeated. completely, due to a number of violations.

The CC is the final body of electoral justice with the power to approve elections in Mozambique. According to Resolution 48/CC/2023, which represents the final decision of the municipal electoral process, the Constitutional Court received and decided on 40 appeals filed in 32 of the 65 municipalities. Some of them were rejected due to problems of untimeliness, submission after the deadline or because they were not appealed at first instance.

The Constitutional Court also received two pre-election appeals from Renamo and one from New Democracy to cancel the elections and recount the votes and referred several cases to the prosecutor’s office “for taking appropriate measures.”

In the sixth local elections, 4,817,702 voters were registered and 1,486 polling stations were created with 6,875 polling stations. The streets of some Mozambican cities, including Maputo, have been taken over by successive opposition demonstrations against what they consider to be “mega-rigging” in the local election process and the results declared by the CNE, which have also been heavily criticized by the CNE. civil society and non-governmental organizations.

Renamo, which was completely demilitarized for the vote for the first time and which in the previous 53 municipalities (12 new municipalities were created this year) led in eight, was left without any municipality in the first CNE statement, despite claiming victory. in the largest cities of the country on the basis of original protocols and notices from polling stations, by appealing to the Central Committee, the final court of appeal in the electoral process.