By Paul Fauvet
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – The Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (PODEMOS), which has become Mozambique's largest opposition party, has submitted a lengthy appeal against the official results from the 9 October general elections, concentrating on mathematical discrepancies.
The presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections were held simultaneously, and so every voter received three ballot papers, one for each election. There were three ballot boxes in each polling station, and each box should have contained the same number of votes as the other two.
But in polling station after polling station, the numbers did not add up. More votes were cast for one election than for the other two. How was that possible?
No observer has ever seen voters throw ballot papers away. Each of them puts one ballot paper in each of the boxes.
Minor discrepancies could be put down to human error. But these discrepancies between the elections are not measured in ones and twos, but in dozens, hundreds and even thousands.
Podemos did the maths for the provincial and the district counts, and almost everywhere it found discrepancies, with more votes cast in one of the elections than for the other two.
"When elections are held simultaneously, the norm would be to have the same number of voters and the same number of abstentions", Podemos pointed out. Instead there were discrepancies that could not be explained, leading to what it called "absolutely invalid irregularities".
For example, in the southern district of Boane, 8,606 more citizens voted for the President than for the parliament. Yet every voter received a parliamentary ballot paper.
In Govuro district, in Inhambane province, 7,062 more people voted for the provincial assembly than for the president. In Massinga, also in Inhambane, the difference was massive. Apparently, 36,974 more people voted for parliament than for the provincial assembly. "Since the elections took place simultaneously, this result is impossible", remarked Podemos.
And so it was across the country. In district after district, more people seemed to vote in one of the three elections than in the other two.
This is not a glitch in the system. For in a few districts, the numbers are honest, and there are no discrepancies. Thus in Namacurra district, in the central province of Zambezia, the same number of people (33,421) voted in all three elections, and there was the same number of abstentions (75,504). All these numbers, Podemos noted, "correspond to the dictates of the law".
Likewise in Morrumbene district, in Inhambane. The numbers of votes for president and parliament (26,964) coincided.
But these districts are the exceptions. In most cases, the numbers do not add up – sometimes with a difference running into tens of thousands. In the central city of Quelimane, for example, 48,455 more people voted for parliament than for the provincial assembly.
Podemos concluded that these differences can only be explained by people voting more than once or by additional votes being slipped into the ballot boxes.
Buried among the avalanche of numbers in the Podemos appeal are signs of far more serious irregularities. Although, in general, turnout in these elections was very low (43 per cent, on average), some of the districts reported an impossibly high turnout.
This in Changara district, in Tete province, 68,218 voters were registered, and of these 68,117 voted – a turnout of 99.85 per cent! Nowhere in the world do honest elections produce such extraordinarily high turnouts. If true, they would mean that between voter registration and polling day, almost nobody in the district died, fell seriously ill, or moved away.
Other districts with suspiciously high turnouts include Mapai, in Gaza province (93.4 per cent), and three other Tete districts – Zumbo (93.4 per cent), Macanga (91.4 per cent) and Chifunde (90.3 per cent).
Podemos is asking the Constitutional Council to annul the elections in those districts where the number of voters in the three elections was different.
Furthermore, it wants the Council to order the CNE to produce the editais on which it based its claims of a Frelimo victory, so that it can confront them with its own copies of the editais. (PF)
