Chengetai Zvauya, PARLIAMENTARY EDITOR • 21 October 2014 9:11PM • 22 comments
HARARE - A regional election observer mission headed by Zimbabwe has declared Mozambique’s general elections generally “free, fair, and credible.”
Rita Makarau, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson who led the 29-member Electoral Commission Forum of Sadc countries (ECF-Sadc) observer mission, gave a positive assessment of the presidential and legislative elections held last Wednesday as the main opposition party Renamo denounced alleged fraud and intimidation at the polls in the former Portuguese colony.
The ruling Frelimo party’s candidate, Filipe Nyusi, led by 62 percent of the votes, while the opposition party Renamo has just under a third of the votes counted and the Mozambique Democratic Movement has just over 10 percent.
“We endorsed the outcome of elections results as free and fair,” Makarau told the Daily News yesterday.
An ECF- Sadc preliminary report said: “The ECF–Sadc Mission commends the National Electoral Commission (CNE) of Mozambique for successfully organising 2014 tripartite elections. CNE demonstrated professionalism and independence for which they should be highly commended.
“The mission highly commends the people of Mozambique, CNE, all political parties and candidates for a free, fair, credible and peaceful process in which all stakeholders participated freely,” said the report, signed by Makarau.
Makarau confirmed they had received complaints from Renamo that one ballot box in a province was not counted and could have been tampered with.
“We have left the matter to the local body of NEC to deal with the issue as there are allegations from Renamo that some ballot boxes were stuffed,” she said. “We encouraged Renamo to approach the Constitutional Court and if valid, the results of the province be quarantined.”