The Optimist People's Party for the Development of Mozambique (PODEMOS) denounces the illegality and injustice of the Constitutional Council's ignoring some stages of the complaint submitted by the party claiming its victory and that of its presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane..

In a publication in the newspaper "The Country", PODEMOS also guarantees that the demonstrations will continue until "electoral legality is restored".

Speaking to the press yesterday, the president of PODEMOS, Albino Forquilha, said that the Constitutional Council was not telling the truth in relation to the legal position of the winners of the ballot, pointing to the appeal lodged in relation to the disparity in the numbers of voters in the three elections on October 9.

"According to our legislation, an appeal is a prerogative that citizens have, so that in the event of non-compliance, they can have their rights compensated. So the Constitutional Council, in complete disregard for the law, decided not to consider our appeal and sent the appeal to the second phase. Within the scope of the Electoral Law and the Constitution of the Republic, the CC has two stages: the first is to consider complaints and appeals, once these have been finalized, it moves on to the validation stage, and before doing so it does not move on to the validation stage. The Constitutional Council decided to examine our appeal at the validation stage and this constitutes a breach of the law," accused Albino Forquilha.

For PODEMOS, "the Constitutional Council has to comply with the law, so it has filed an appeal, even if it seems painful to say that Frelimo lost, that the CNE did a bad job, it is this consequence that it has to accept". "If the National Electoral Commission failed to do its job, and if the number of people who voted in favor of Venâncio Mondlane and PODEMOS is higher than the number of people who voted for Daniel Chapo and Frelimo, then we filed a complaint asking for the decision to be annulled," he continued.

Forquilha went on to clarify that PODEMOS remains aligned with Venâncio Mondlane, and that the demonstrations will continue until the electoral truth is restored. "In the wake of the pressure for electoral justice, we will continue to hold our marches, separate from the vandalism that has been taking place. The institutions are working on the process so that they can go to justice."

"The discontent isn't just from PODEMOS members, it's popular and there's a lot of solidarity and we're happy about that," he said.

(Photo DR)