Since the start of voter registration on 20th April for the 2023 and 2024 municipal and general elections, respectively, there have been confirmed reports of the Technical Secretariat Electoral Administration (STAE) staff involved in what can best be described as attempts to rig the electoral process.
Initially, the attempts seemed to be confined to the provinces of Nampula (northern region) and Zambézia (central region), the two of the country’s largest constituencies. But the electoral wrongdoing has spread south to Maputo province.
The pattern is the same: illegal night registration and outside the premises of the voter registration brigades in three municipalities in the two provinces. The people being registered were non-residents of the municipalities, meaning that they had been bussed from districts where voting will not take place because they are not municipalities.
Specifically, mobile computers were removed from voter registration premises and taken to undisclosed locations, which end up being associated to the ruling Frelimo party members. This was the case in Ribaue, Nampula, where two mobile computers were found at the residence of Frelimo’s first secretary.
Last week, people from Moamba were caught in camera in the municipality of Matola, just a stone’s throw from Maputo city, trying to register – Moamba is a district 50 km away from Matola.
Furthermore, in such municipalities, voters are being turned away under the excuse that the mobile computers used to register them have broken down. However, the same mobile computers are used at night to register non-residents.
And the same type of shenanigans has been observed in Beira, the capital city of Sofala province.
Comment
The wrongdoings have taken place in municipalities either in the hands of the opposition or where in the last elections it was too close to call, and where there was evidence of rigging in favour of Frelimo.
Therefore, the turning away of local voters under the excuse that the mobile computers broke down would be an attempt to suppress opposition vote, and the illegal night registration is meant to inflate would-be Frelimo vote.
Since more and more a picture is emerging of STAE staff complicity, observers think that they are not acting out of their own accord, but they are simply following orders.
Also, the bussing of voters from outside the municipalities involves a well-planned operation and logistics, which the opposition does not have.
So far, nothing has been said with regards to what will happen in cases where evidence abounds of non-resident voters registering outside their local of residence. If history is anything to go by, nothing will be done.
For example, in the 2019 general elections, STAE brigades in the southern Gaza province magically registered impossible high numbers – 1,166,011 voters. However, this figure contradicted the 2017 national census conducted by the much-respected National Statistics Institute (INE), which put voting age adults at 836,581 in Gaza.
This led to a showdown between the National Elections Commission (CNE) and STAE against INE, with the latter saying that such a demographic figure could only be possible In 2043. Amid political outcry, the Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) was charged with conducted an audit which is yet to see the light of day.
Consequently, Gaza province elected 8 extra members of parliament under Mozambique’s proportional representation system and the rest is history.
Mozambique Insights understands that this rampant behaviour must be Frelimo’s reaction to public discontent, which it thinks could result in poor performance at the ballot box in 2023, with the opposition winning in more municipalities.
Therefore, the rigging of the voter registration process would be a way to offset any potential losses and continue to keep its grip on power by hook or by crook.
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