The Constitutional Council, Mozambique's highest body in matters of constitutional and electoral law, dismissed around 95 percent of the electoral challenges and infringements presented to the district courts by the opposition parties, in the context of the presidential, legislative and provincial elections held on October 9.

According to the spokesman for the Supreme Court, Pedro Nhatitima, speaking to journalists on Thursday in Maputo, only five percent of the cases have been tried and sentenced, and the files have been sent to the Constitutional Council for due observation and assessment.

"Most of the cases were unsuccessful for various reasons, including the lack of a prior challenge and the failure of the political parties involved to gather evidence because they were unaware of the procedures," he said.

The "prior challenge" refers to the principle that the applicant should present the alleged irregularity as soon as possible.

Nhatitima explained that in many of the appeals submitted to the courts, the appellants merely made generalized allegations without attaching the necessary evidence, and even in the cases where the courts took action, it was not possible to confirm the allegations made by the appellants.

The party with the most resources is the Optimist Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), which supports independent presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.

"Podemos submitted a total of 70 appeals to the district courts. Renamo submitted 51 appeals and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) submitted 15 appeals. There were contestants who asked for the elections to be annulled or repeated due to irregularities considered serious in the polling stations, but their appeals were not upheld, as this is a competence of the Constitutional Council and not the district courts," said Nhatitima.

Of the few appeals that were accepted, the courts mostly proved that there was a discrepancy between the number of voters and the number of ballot papers in the ballot box, the refusal of the local offices of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE) to receive complaints, the handing out of extra ballot papers to voters (which is a form of ballot box stuffing), and the failure to summon party representatives to attend the intermediate (i.e. district or municipal) tabulation of votes.

These are all crimes and the case should be referred, not to the Constitutional Council, but to the Public Prosecutor's Office. (Text AIM)