Election Law revisions due within one year

Proposals for changes in the election laws will be submitted to parliament by 31 March 2001, the parliamentary ad-hoc commission to revise the electoral law told parliament (AR, Assembleia da República) in March. This allow the laws to be approved in time for local elections which must take place in 2003 and national elections in 2004.

The ad-hoc commission has concluded that the issue of the electoral law is primarily political and not technical, and has thus decided to allow nine months for discussion between the parties followed by only one month of consultation with the public and with election technical experts. Initially the two parliamentary benches submit proposals and these are to be debated and proposals will be agreed. Only then will the ad hoc committee talk to others.

The National Election Commission (Lei 4/99) will be considered first. Parties were to submit proposals by 2 April and they will be discussed in May and June. Actual election procedures for president, parliament, and municipal presidents and assemblies (Leis 6/97 and 3/99) will be considered next, with party submissions by 30 April and discussion in August and September. Registration (Lei 5/97) comes last, with submissions by 31 May and discussion in October and November. Public consultations will occur in February 2002 followed by a month for revisions, and submission to the full AR on 31 March 2002.

The ad hoc commission was also concerned about its budget. The AR finances department set aside a budget of only 300 million meticais ($16,000) whereas the ad hoc commission says it needs 1,471 million meticais ($80,000). Nearly all of this, 1,099 million meticais, is for additional money for the committee members as "honorários" and "subsídios".

 
Bigger or smaller Election Commission?

The biggest difference between the two main parties is over the size and procedures of the National Election Commission (CNE, Comissão Nacional de Eleições). Frelimo wants to move to a "smaller, cheaper, neutral" CNE and reverse the increasing "partyization" of the electoral system. Renamo does not believe that in present day Mozambique it is possible to find enough people who are neutral, so it wants a CNE which is half Frelimo and half opposition, and that the two sides should select an outside neutral chair. (At present there is a government/Frelimo majority and the President appoints the chair). Renamo also wants a very large CNE, with 23 members (11 from each side plus the chair).

The 1994 CNE had 21 members. The 1999 CNE had 17 members: 8 Frelimo, 7 opposition, 2 government and the chair selected from within these 17.

Despite complaints at the time, Renamo now cites the 1994 CNE as a good experience because it was large and worked by consensus. Renamo again demands that the CNE work by consensus and not by majority vote, which would give a veto to every individual member of a very large group.

Consensus caused delays and problems in both national elections. In 1994, under chair Brazão Mazula, the CNE simply did not take decisions when there was no consensus. One result was that the CNE never approved parts of the manual for polling station staff. This meant that instructions on deciding when a ballot paper was invalid were never given to polling station staff, which was a major reason for the large number of invalid votes (nulos) which had to be reconsidered in Maputo in 1994.

In 1999 chair Jamisse Taimo also sometimes delayed contentious decisions. One result was that the final list of polling stations was only agreed two days before the election.

 
COMMENT:
Is delay acceptable?

"It is better to wait five weeks if necessary but to get a clear and correct result", said Manuel Frank, head of the Renamo team working on the election law. Yet for Máximo Dias, a prominent Renamo-UE lawyer, delays in the 1999 result were already too long and only served to allow time from Frelimo to fake the result.

Officially Renamo sees consensus decision making and trusted party people doing slow and deliberate work on the count as being the best insurance against fraud. Yet this slows the process and makes it virtually impossible to meet tight deadlines. As deadlines are missed, others in the opposition see delay as space for fraud by the government. It is a conundrum which is genuinely difficult to resolve, but this must be done if a process is to be created which everyone trusts.

AWEPA has repeatedly argued that the only solution is to increase transparency. One choice, which we propose further on, is to make the counting process even more transparent to allow more detailed checks to be made by media and outside observers, so that less control is needed inside the CNE. The other choice is to make the CNE's meetings open, so that the press and public can see if one side is being deliberately obstructive or, conversely, a delay is caused by genuine problems which require time. The problem may be that too many people want secret meetings so their obstruction is not known, or so they can pass on distorted reports to their supporters and the press.
J.H.

 
Agreement on other changes

On a number of other areas, there seems to be agreement of the two sides. Renamo has called for a permanent CNE rather than the present system where the CNE only functions for brief periods around elections and registration, and which makes it difficult for the CNE to carry out some of its tasks. Renamo suggests that the full CNE only function at the time of elections, and that the rest of the time there would only be a small group, perhaps one or two from each side, who would try to work together and only call on the neutral chair if needed. Frelimo accepts some sort of permanent CNE.

Under the present system, administration of the technical secretariat STAE (Secretariado Técnico de Administração Eleitoral) passes back and forth between the CNE, when it operates, and the Ministry of State Administration, when CNE does not function. Renamo feels this makes STAE a government body and therefore untrustworthy. Both sides agree that STAE should be permanently under the CNE.

There is also agreement that two full days of voting is unnecessary, and some support for the proposal from the Carter Center and UNDP that voting end at noon on the second day, with counting being carried out in daylight on the afternoon of the second day. This would reduce errors because staff would be less tired and would not need to count ballot papers by candle or lamp-light. And there is agreement that it should be possible to extend voting at just some polling stations, for example as in 1999 when a few polling stations never opened due to heavy rain.

Finally, there are proposals to allow more recounts of ballot papers. In 1999, the CNE was forced to not count the results from 560 polling stations in the presidential election and 727 in the parliamentary election because the final reports (editais) had errors which could not be resolved. Recounts are now suggested in such situations.

Some proposals have not yet been discussed. Renamo, for example, is suggesting that instead of a ballot paper, voters be given a stack of slips, one for each party or candidate, put one in an envelope, and give the others back to the polling station staff. This is seen as a way to reduce errors, as it does not require writing. But it imposes other complications, including dealing with large numbers of returned slips of paper.

There are likely to be some disagreements about improving procedure. The present law puts considerable stress on the use of party poll watchers (delegados de candidaturas) as a way of preventing fraud. But one senior Renamo-UE MP admitted to the Bulletin that in 1999 "Renamo-UE delegados were not prepared. They were not party militants and were doing it only for the money, so they were not useful. We need to find methods that do not depend on delegados."

In particular, Renamo wants the polling station president to give a copy of the final report (edital) to a delegado from each party present - which would make it easier for semi-literate delegados to report.

Alfredo Gamito, head of the parliamentary working group, argues that one of the main causes of errors in the 1999 election was not problems with the laws that need to be resolved, but rather a lack of training and poor training of election staff. He says more people with education, such as nurses and teachers, should be used as polling station staff and they should be better trained.

 
Another attempt to revise the Constitution

Following the failure to revise the constitution before the last elections, parliament has again set up an ad hoc commission. Although public statements indicate wide differences remain between the two sides, it appears that there is a surprising level of agreement on the main points:

• To retain the present presidential system in contrast to the 1999 proposal which would have shifted substantial power to parliament, but
• To reduce the power of the president and shift powers to provincial level.

And there seems agreement that much of the work done on the previous failed attempt to revise the constitution can be carried forward and used again.

The previous attempt, during the 1994-99 parliament, led to a consensus proposal, which was then rejected by Renamo president Afonso Dhlakama who, if he was elected president in 1999, wanted the wide-ranging powers now enjoyed by Joaquim Chissano. There now seems an agreement to stick to a presidential system, but with reduced powers.

For its part, Renamo wants more powers at provincial level and also feels that the president should not appoint people like judges, governors and university rectors. For its part, the Frelimo parliamentary bench has always wanted to shift power away from the presidency, and now openly says that it must accept that some day it will lose power and that it would not want an opposition president to have as much power as Chissano. Thus it seems that the two sides can come to agreement on how to reduce the powers of the president.

Decentralisation seems a more difficult issue, but there is also a basis for negotiation. Renamo wants a South African style constitution, with elected governors and provincial assemblies which have real budgets and power. Senior Frelimo figures call this "federalism" and reject it; one senior MP told the Bulletin that federalism was the cause of Nigeria's problems, and that Mozambique must retain a unitary state.

Renamo has already proposed elected provincial assemblies under the current constitution, and the government is proposing appointed councils (see box above). Thus it seems that both sides are pushing to devolve power to the provincial level, and that a compromise could be possible.