Maputo — Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE) has been accused of showing an extraordinary degree of favouritism and tolerance towards the newly founded Party of Freedom and Democracy (PLD), which was not shown towards any other extra-parliamentary party.
According to the latest issue of the weekly paper "Magazine Independente" (MI), the CNE gave the PLD extra opportunities to correct irregularities in its lists of candidates for the parliamentary constituencies. The PLD received three notifications from the CNE, compared to at most two for other parties.
The last notification the PLD received was dated 1 September - over a month after the closing date for the delivery of candidates' nomination papers, 29 July. The notification gave the PLD five days to correct irregularities - yet when the PLD lists of candidates appeared on the CNE notice board, they bore the date 28 August.
MI wondered how a supposedly definitive list of candidates could be dated 28 August, when on 1 September the PLD was notified that three of its candidates had not delivered their criminal record certificates, and a fourth did not have his signature on the letter accepting nomination recognised by a notary.
Had those irregularities been corrected? If so, there should be a document from the CNE to the PLD acknowledging receipt of the missing documents. But the party's president, Caetano Sabile, could not show any such document to MI. He claimed the document was with another PLD member who was allegedly "unwell and out of communication".
The CNE accepted the PLD's lists for ten of the 13 provinces. Only the ruling Frelimo Party and the former rebel movement Renamo are standing in more constituencies. Yet the PLD admits that it does not have members in all provinces. Sabile claims that his party has 10,000 members, but says that the great majority of them live in either Maputo or in his home district of Chiure, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
This is not illegal, since in parliamentary elections candidates do not have to live in the constituency they contest. But it does raise the question of how the PLD can possible campaign in provinces where it has no members.
Sabile used to be a member of another tiny party, PADELIMO (Democratic and Liberal Party of Mozambique), which won the grand total of 3,720 votes in the 2004 parliamentary election (0.12 per cent of the total). The PADELIMO leader, Joaquim Nyota, was one of the would-be candidates for the presidency in 2004 who submitted fraudulent papers. For the list of 10,000 supporting signatures that a presidential candidate needs, Nyota had simply copied names out of an electoral register, the sequential numbering of the voter cards being an obvious give-away. He should have been prosecuted for fraud, but, as usual with electoral offences, the Attorney-General's Office took no action.
Sabile fell out with Nyota in December 2008, and decided to form his own party. So the PLD was registered with the Ministry of Justice on 11 June, but it did not receive a certificate from the Central Registry Office, proving that it was legally registered, until 29 July - the closing day for nominations.
At that stage, neither the certificate nor the party statutes had been published in the official gazette, the "Boletim da Republica" (BR). Yet in order to take part in elections parties are supposed to show the CNE the copy of the BR that proves their legal status. The CNE tolerantly overlooked this.
Publishing party statutes in the BR is not free of charge. But only on 17 September did the PLD pay the government printing press to insert the statutes in the BR. According to MI, this only happened because banks are more demanding than the CNE. The bank would not agree to allow the PLD to open an account through which it could operate the campaign funds received from the CNE without first seeing proof of its status in the BR.
A week ago, MI ran its first story on the PLD, accusing the CNE of allowing an illegal party to stand in the elections. An angry Sabile accused MI of "disinformation', and went to the paper's office waving documents which, he claimed, showed that the party is perfectly legal. These documents did not include any copy of the BR.
Sabile, who is a former soldier, threatened the MI journalist. "Take care, take a great deal of care with me", he warned. "If you like, write that I've threatened you! Everything that the other papers have written, you're the ones who started it!"
It seems unlikely that anything can now stop this parody of a party from standing in the elections. The highest body dealing with electoral disputes, the Constitutional Council, is essentially an appeals court. Since no other party protested in good time to the Council about the PLD's inclusion, it can take no
Fonte: allafrica
Nota: Será interessante ler os comentários sobre este assuntos e não menos dos conhecedores das leis.
According to the latest issue of the weekly paper "Magazine Independente" (MI), the CNE gave the PLD extra opportunities to correct irregularities in its lists of candidates for the parliamentary constituencies. The PLD received three notifications from the CNE, compared to at most two for other parties.
The last notification the PLD received was dated 1 September - over a month after the closing date for the delivery of candidates' nomination papers, 29 July. The notification gave the PLD five days to correct irregularities - yet when the PLD lists of candidates appeared on the CNE notice board, they bore the date 28 August.
MI wondered how a supposedly definitive list of candidates could be dated 28 August, when on 1 September the PLD was notified that three of its candidates had not delivered their criminal record certificates, and a fourth did not have his signature on the letter accepting nomination recognised by a notary.
Had those irregularities been corrected? If so, there should be a document from the CNE to the PLD acknowledging receipt of the missing documents. But the party's president, Caetano Sabile, could not show any such document to MI. He claimed the document was with another PLD member who was allegedly "unwell and out of communication".
The CNE accepted the PLD's lists for ten of the 13 provinces. Only the ruling Frelimo Party and the former rebel movement Renamo are standing in more constituencies. Yet the PLD admits that it does not have members in all provinces. Sabile claims that his party has 10,000 members, but says that the great majority of them live in either Maputo or in his home district of Chiure, in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.
This is not illegal, since in parliamentary elections candidates do not have to live in the constituency they contest. But it does raise the question of how the PLD can possible campaign in provinces where it has no members.
Sabile used to be a member of another tiny party, PADELIMO (Democratic and Liberal Party of Mozambique), which won the grand total of 3,720 votes in the 2004 parliamentary election (0.12 per cent of the total). The PADELIMO leader, Joaquim Nyota, was one of the would-be candidates for the presidency in 2004 who submitted fraudulent papers. For the list of 10,000 supporting signatures that a presidential candidate needs, Nyota had simply copied names out of an electoral register, the sequential numbering of the voter cards being an obvious give-away. He should have been prosecuted for fraud, but, as usual with electoral offences, the Attorney-General's Office took no action.
Sabile fell out with Nyota in December 2008, and decided to form his own party. So the PLD was registered with the Ministry of Justice on 11 June, but it did not receive a certificate from the Central Registry Office, proving that it was legally registered, until 29 July - the closing day for nominations.
At that stage, neither the certificate nor the party statutes had been published in the official gazette, the "Boletim da Republica" (BR). Yet in order to take part in elections parties are supposed to show the CNE the copy of the BR that proves their legal status. The CNE tolerantly overlooked this.
Publishing party statutes in the BR is not free of charge. But only on 17 September did the PLD pay the government printing press to insert the statutes in the BR. According to MI, this only happened because banks are more demanding than the CNE. The bank would not agree to allow the PLD to open an account through which it could operate the campaign funds received from the CNE without first seeing proof of its status in the BR.
A week ago, MI ran its first story on the PLD, accusing the CNE of allowing an illegal party to stand in the elections. An angry Sabile accused MI of "disinformation', and went to the paper's office waving documents which, he claimed, showed that the party is perfectly legal. These documents did not include any copy of the BR.
Sabile, who is a former soldier, threatened the MI journalist. "Take care, take a great deal of care with me", he warned. "If you like, write that I've threatened you! Everything that the other papers have written, you're the ones who started it!"
It seems unlikely that anything can now stop this parody of a party from standing in the elections. The highest body dealing with electoral disputes, the Constitutional Council, is essentially an appeals court. Since no other party protested in good time to the Council about the PLD's inclusion, it can take no
Fonte: allafrica
Nota: Será interessante ler os comentários sobre este assuntos e não menos dos conhecedores das leis.
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