In Changara, the Dead Vote Again

By Paul Fauvet

As the Constitutional Council considers the results of the 28 October general elections, and the appeal against them by the former rebel movement Renamo, one of the issues it will have to consider is the curious case of polling stations that declared a turnout of 95 per cent, 100 percent or more.

The national turnout was poor, at 44 per cent of the registered electorate. But there were districts that declared a turnout that was over twice as large. Changara, in the western province of Tete, claimed 95 per cent, and Chicualacuala, in Gaza province in the south, claimed 96 per cent.

And within those districts - and several others in Tete and Gaza - there were the stations where everybody voted. Or more than everybody. Take polling station 050304 in Changara. Its register book contained 456 names - yet, according to its results sheet ("edital"), there were 468 votes in the ballot box, and all 468 of them were for the same candidate, incumbent President Armando Guebuza.

Now it is theoretically possible to record a turnout of over 100 per cent, because a few people (such as polling station staff and policemen guarding the stations) were allowed to vote wherever they were working rather than at the polling station where they were registered. So if everyone on the register voted, plus the staff and the police, then in theory turnout could go over 100 per cent.

But when we say "theoretically possible", this is possibility in the sense that it is possible for the same person to win the lottery a dozen times in a row, or to pick up a hand at bridge containing 13 cards in the same suit. Possible, but scarcely worth serious consideration.

There is also an unfortunate fact of human biology to consider. People, including voters, die. The Mozambican electorate was re-registered from scratch between September 2007 and March 2008. There were then two updates of the register, in mid-2008 and mid-2009, bringing the registered electorate to its current figure of 9.8 million.

Anyone who wants us to believe the results from Changara or Chicualacuala is suggesting, not only that the voters in these districts are much more interested in politics than the electorate in Maputo or Beira, but that virtually no voters died there between September 2007 and October 2009.

Also stations with 100 per cent turnout imply that nobody in that area was too sick to vote on 28 October, and nobody had left the district - even though Chicualacuala, like the rest of Gaza province, is an area of labour migration.

The National Elections Commission (CNE) did take some action against the phoney editais from Tete. A comparison between the results announced by the Tete Provincial Elections Commission and the final results announced by the CNE shows that 85,693 votes have disappeared.

The CNE threw out a sixth of all Tete votes (which is well over 100 polling stations), and this brought the claimed turnout in Tete down from 66 to 55 per cent.

Announcing the results on 11 November, CNE chairperson Joao Leopoldo da Costa did not so much as mention this major change. It was clearly the correct thing for the CNE to do - major malpractice had happened in Tete, and the CNE tried to clean some of it up. For which it should have received a round of applause - but only people who looked at the figures carefully would ever know that the change had taken place.

This is the third election in a row where the Changara results have been inflated. The only clean election in Changara was the first one, in 1994, which showed that, while Changara is certainly a Frelimo stronghold, Renamo had the support of around a quarter of the electorate.

We are now expected to believe that this 25 per cent of the voters has disappeared or converted to Frelimo. This time, in polling station after polling station in Changara the phoney editais gave Renamo leader and presidential candidate Afonso Dhlakama no votes at all. The more generous would give him one or two and, very occasionally, his tally would go into double figures.

There were 122 polling stations in Changara. In a trawl through the STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) data base, AIM could find just 71 Changara editais - which suggests that, in its purge of the Tete results, the CNE threw out the other 51.

Perhaps the CNE scrapped the most egregiously absurd Changara editais - but the purge could have gone much further, for most of those which remain are not credible either. Take station 050311, where the edital claimed that 973 of the 999 people on the register voted (a 97.4 per cent turnout). All 973 votes were for Guebuza. Supposedly nobody voted for Dhlakama, or for the third candidate, Daviz Simango, and nobody cast a blank or invalid ballot.

The next station, 050310, seems more credible at first, because the turnout is under 50 per cent - 466 votes and 939 names on the register. But the edital claims that all 466 votes were cast for Guebuza. Nothing for the opposition, no blank votes, and no spoiled ballots.

At the Changara locality of Nhalicune, at station 050317, 993 people out of a register of 1,000 (99.3 per cent turnout) supposedly voted. This time only 989 voted for Guebuza. The other four were invalid ballots.

At Birira, polling station 050327 recorded 446 votes out of an electorate of 464 (96.1 per cent turnout). Guebuza had 440 votes and the other six were invalid. At station 050335, there were 194 names on the register, but 200 votes in the ballot box (turnout of 103 per cent). 198 of the votes were for Guebuza and the other two were invalid.

At station 050362 there was a turnout of 102 per cent - 217 names on the register and 221 votes in the box. 220 of the votes were for Guebuza and one was invalid

At Wiriamu (the site of a notorious massacre by the Portuguese army during the colonial war) 949 people out of a list of 993 (95.6 per cent turnout) at station 050320 supposedly voted. This edital gave Guebuza 900 votes, allowed Dhlakama and Simango nine each, and claimed there were seven blank ballots and 24 invalid votes.

Many more examples of such editais from Changara could be given, but would only tire our readers.

The problem spreads to other districts as well. Thus in Magoe, polling station 050517 claimed that 989 of its register of 1,000 had voted (98.9 per cent turnout). There were 969 votes for Guebuza, two for Simango, one for Dhlakama and 17 invalid votes.

In Macanga district, at station 050486, 994 out of 997 names on the register had supposedly voted, 926 of them for Guebuza, three for Simango, one for Dhlakama, with four blank votes and 60 invalid votes.

But, unlike Changara, the other districts also have some credible results. In Macanga, station 050485 had a turnout of 54 per cent (443 out of an electorate of 816). Guebuza won 324 votes, Dhlakama 62 and Simango 24. There were 28 blank votes and five invalid votes.

Or take station 050506, where 311 out of 625 people voted (49.7 per cent turnout), 214 of them for Guebuza, 44 for Dhlakama, and 15 for Simango, with 23 blank ballots and 15 invalid ones. These results make sense: the opposition picked up 22 per cent of the valid votes, which seems reasonable in a Frelimo stronghold.

Occasionally, the fraudsters got careless. For example, in station 050522 in Magoe, the parliamentary edital claimed that Frelimo won 281 votes, no other party won any cotes, and there were two invalid ballots. But the presidential edital gave 271 votes, not to Guebuza, but to Simango ! (and claimed the other 12 votes cast were all invalid).

This is simply explained - Frelimo was top of the parliamentary ballot paper, but Simango was top of the presidential one. The dishonest staff who wrote this edital carelessly gave the votes they had intended for Guebuza to Simango instead.

In other parts of Tete, the editais are not corrupted. Tete city seems clean, for example, and so do the districts of Angonia and Mutarara on the border with Malawi. Renamo, which dominated this district in the 1990s, must be bitterly disappointed with the Angonia results, but in most cases that AIM has seen there is nothing obviously fraudulent about them.

For example, in station 050165 in Angonia 445 out of 994 registered voters cast their ballots (44.8 per cent turnout). 278 voted for Guebuza, 44 for Dhlakama and 102 for Simango. Such figures are quite normal for an election won overwhelmingly by Frelimo, and are in stark contrast with the ridiculous figures from Changara.

But what should be done about polling stations where the dead rise from their graves and vote? One person who had no doubt about this was a former member of the Constitutional Council, Teodato Hunguana. In an article published in 2006, in a collection of essays on the 2004 elections, Hunguana described such corrupted results as "absolutely null".

In polling stations where the dead vote, he remarked, "nothing guarantees that the votes of the living are not of the same nature as the votes of the dead".

Hunguana argued that in the case of something that was "absolutely null and void", the correct procedure was to cancel the elections in those polling stations and hold them again.

It remains to be seen whether anyone will act on this advice.

Source: Allafrica