An ad-hoc committee of the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, has drawn up a short list of 15 names, from the 24 that were submitted by civil society organisations. The Assembly plenary must hold a secret ballot election to choose six of these – three full members of the CNE, and three supplementary members.
Before the election, however, the Assembly Commission on Legal and Constitutional Affairs must give its opinion on the candidates. The Commission interrogated all 15 candidates last week, and promised to give its opinion by Monday.
However, the Commission has remained silent, and, according to “Mediafax”, by Monday it had not even begun to analyse the data from last week’s hearings of the candidates. The paper suggests the opinion may not become public knowledge until the plenary session at which the CNE members are elected.
The main dispute is whether the current CNE chairperson. Joao Leopoldo da Costa, is eligible to stand for a further five years on the CNE. He was supposedly proposed by the National Teachers’ Union (ONP) – but ONP President, Beatriz Muhuro, denies that the union leadership ever discussed the matter. She dismisses Costa’s nomination papers as forgeries.
An angry meeting of bona fide civil society bodies, held in Maputo on Friday, warned that the CNE was in danger of losing all credibility. Graca Samo, the director of the Women’s Forum, a coalition of women’s rights organisations, told reporters that the candidacy of Costa was openly illegal and invalid.
But the problem did not stop at Costa. The ONP leadership said it did not stand anybody – and yet people have been appointed to several of the provincial elections commission, allegedly on the proposal of the ONP. So the civil society meeting demanded that all candidates, at whatever level of the electoral machinery, supposedly nominated by the ONP, should be considered ineligible.
Samo said she had expected the Assembly of the Republic to take a much firmer position, since the illegalities involved were plainly visible.
Paula Monjane, director of the Civil Society Studies Centre (CESC), said there is more than enough evidence for the Attorney-General’s Office to take legal action against those who had forged signatures and passed themselves off as representatives of the ONP.
Anastácio Matavele, of the Gaza Provincial Forum of NGOs (FONGA), denounced the corruption of procedures in Gaza, where all five civil society members of the provincial elections commission, were supposedly proposed by the ONP. He urged the ruling Frelimo Party to allow civil society to operate in the electoral process without any political interference.
Post published in: Africa News