The director of the Technical Secretariat for the Administration of Elections (STAE) in Marromeu said this Saturday that he does not know the reasons for the repetition of local elections in this municipality in central Mozambique, decided by the Constitutional Council, scheduled for Sunday.
“We do not know the decision of the Constitutional Council, only this judicial body knows the true reasons for this decision,” Daniel Vasco Cusaminho, director of the STAE Marromeu district, told reporters in a statement.
The official says STAE should have ensured that its members involved in the election process are trained in terms of election management so that voting this Sunday can take place accordingly.
“Our responsibility is to ensure the smooth processes. We have already prepared our members for tomorrow’s vote and are ready to vote,” he said.
The re-voting in Marromeu, Sofala province, involves all 41 polling stations and eight polling stations, with 29,433 registered voters.
Polling officials who were involved in illegal activities in Mozambique’s Oct. 11 elections will be excluded from new ballots scheduled for Sunday in four municipalities. The process will cost almost 600 thousand euros, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) said on Wednesday. .
“We are currently recruiting, and this does not include those members of the polling station (MMVS) who were directly involved in the illegal activities that occurred on election day (…) Those who dealt with these issues will most likely be away , they won’t participate in this [novo] process,” said Paulo Quinica, CNE spokesman, during a press conference in Maputo.
The spokesman said a process was underway to “attribute accountability” for illegal acts that occurred on voting day in Mozambique’s sixth local elections. -fraud”.
The re-vote will cost 41 million meticais (595 thousand euros), the official said, noting that the new vote will take place in 75 polling stations, of which 18 are in Nacala Porto (Nampula province), three in Milange and 13 in Gurué (Zambezia). ) and all 41 tables in Marromeu (Sofala).
“A civic education campaign is being carried out to sensitize voters registered at their respective polling stations so that on the 10th they can turn up to exercise their right to vote between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm,” a CNE spokesperson said. .
Mozambique’s Council of Ministers approved a decree last week that sets December 10 as the date for repeating local elections in four municipalities where the process was not approved by the Constitutional Council (CC).
The Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo, the largest opposition party) called last week to suspend the repetition of these elections in these municipalities.
Current legislation establishes that if elections at one or more polling stations are declared invalid, “the corresponding electoral acts are repeated until the second Sunday after the decision of the Constitutional Council.”
Mozambique’s Constitutional Council declared on 24 November the Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) as the winner of the 11 October municipal elections in 56 municipalities against the previous 64 declared by the CNE, with Renamo winning four, and it ordered repeat elections in four more countries.
According to the ruling, approved unanimously and read by the President of the Constitutional Court, Counselor Judge Lucia Ribeiro, Frelimo maintained its victory in the country’s two main cities, Maputo and Matola, in which Renamo claimed victory, despite cutting some 60,000 people. votes – the total number of votes allocated to the party in power.