Deadlock over law
threatens 2003
municipal elections

Failure to move forward on revisions of the electoral laws is provoking serious questions about the ability to prepare adequately for the 2003 local elections. It will now be very difficult to approve the law in time and organise an updating of the electoral register, raising again the spectre of confusion and boycott that plagued the 1998 local elections.

The work of the Ad Hoc Parliamentary Commission for the Revision of Electoral Legislation is totally paralysed. There are no serious negotiations within the Commission and neither Frelimo nor Renamo seems interested in breaking the deadlock.

Four laws must be revised, and the Ad Hoc Commission had planned to finish first drafts by the end of November, to allow public consultation in February 2002 and formal submission to the next session of parliament (AR, Assembleia da República) in March. So far, the commission has agreed only seven articles of the first law, and has only discussed 18 articles out of a total of 424, despite more than 50 meetings - as well as five groups of three deputies (MPs) each visiting all provinces to listen to the views there.

The mutual distrust between Frelimo and Renamo on election issues remains very strong, and both sides seem afraid to make any concessions. Renamo sticks to maximum demands and Frelimo refuses changes in the present system because it fears these might be seen as an admission that there were problems with the 1999 elections.

Renamo wants major changes in the law, while Frelimo will accept only minor revisions. Ad Hoc Commission chair Alfredo Gamito, a former Minister of State Administration, argues that the commission does not have the capacity to do a major redrafting. His suggestion that the four lawyers on the commission (two from each side) sit down to try to harmonise the proposals was rejected by Renamo; he is now likely to propose that a technical team of consultants be hired to do drafts based on proposals from the two sides, and to highlight agreements and differences.

The issue is likely to come before the full AR later this month.

One attempt to break the deadlock may take place in late December, when it is proposed that up to 40 deputies will attend an all-day meeting organised by the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA). The format is still being discussed. It may involve facilitators in scenario planning, a technique used in South Africa and the Congo to draw out the implications of the positions taken by different sides. Or it may take the form of a seminar on election administration in other countries.

There has been a steady stream of international delegations attempting to mediate or encourage dialogue between Renamo and Frelimo, but this seems to have been counter-productive. This has been seen as international pressure and has caused both sides to withdraw into more rigid positions. EISA may be more acceptable because it is African, although being Johannesburg-based makes it suspect to some people.

There seems to be no interest on either side to resume the Chissano-Dhlakama talks which broke down earlier this year, which means the deadlock will need to be resolved at lower levels.

Commission chair Gamito feels that there is still time to resolve the problems, and if the Commission works full time for the five months next year when the AR is not in session, it would be possible to present a draft law to a special session of the AR in October 2002. That will still provide enough time for registration and then local elections in 2003, he believes. But that requires the political will to move forward.

 
What is disputed?

The deadlock is the same one which has affected all debates about the electoral process - composition and functioning of the National Election Commission (CNE, Comissão Nacional de Eleições) and its subordinate bodies. Renamo continues to demand "parity" - that the CNE have equal numbers of Frelimo and opposition members, with a neutral president. Frelimo wants to retain the present system of "proportionality" - that the number of members should be in proportion to seats in parliament, that the government should also appoint at least one member, and that the president of the CNE should be chosen by the President of Mozambique.

Linked to this is the Renamo demand for consensus decision making, while Frelimo wants simple majority votes. Consensus would give every individual member the ability to block decision-making and paralyse the CNE, and in both 1994 and 1999 elections Renamo CNE members did try to block urgent decisions. But majority decisions under proportionality would allow Frelimo and government-appointed members to simply ignore genuine Renamo concerns.

Renamo insists that the system be replicated at lower levels, with provincial and district election commissions with 11 members each.

Renamo's total distrust of the government and of Frelimo is also shown by its demand that the standing orders of the CNE actually be incorporated in the law, and that the present 26-article law be replaced by a new one with 150 articles.

On two areas, however, there seems some degree of agreement. Renamo has always wanted a large CNE, initially proposing 23 members, while Frelimo proposed 13. This gap has now been narrowed to 19 versus 17. The other area concerns the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE, Secretariado Técnico da Administração Eleitoral). Under the present system, CNE only functions during election and registration periods, and when CNE is not operating, STAE is a government department. To Renamo this is not acceptable, and there is now agreement that CNE needs some kind of permanent presence and that STAE should always be part of CNE.

More serious is the Renamo demand that STAE be politicised. Renamo says that there should be a non-party director, but at all lower levels in the hierarchy staff should be party nominated, and that if a supervisor is of one party, the next level down should be of the other, and so on. This too would be repeated at provincial and district levels. Renamo argues that the history of the one-party state until 1994 means that civil servants are all Frelimo and cannot be trusted to run an election. And there clearly is a Frelimo loyalty in some parts of the civil service. But in the north many civil servants are Renamo supporters, and most civil servants are not activists for any party. In practice, it would be impossible for Renamo to find party loyalists with sufficient technical skill to fill all the relevant STAE posts.

Clearly some way needs to be found to keep STAE as a technical secretariat, but to ensure adequate supervision to prevent party bias.

 
Comment:
Political or technical problem?

There is wide agreement that some technical improvements could be made to the election laws, that there are issues such as registration that need further discussion, and that there are a number of errors and inconsistencies that need to be resolved. But at the request of Renamo, the parliamentary Ad Hoc Commission decided to start first with the CNE and try to resolve the contentious political issues before moving on to the technical ones. This has led to a deadlock which means that when there is a political solution, there may no longer be enough time to solve the technical problems. This has happened before, and is one reason why some of the same problems appeared both in 1994 and 1999.

Of course, political and technical are closely linked. Starting with the technical issues might have been a confidence-building process which could have made later political discussions easier.

Transparency is a technical solution but a political problem. If reports of CNE meetings were published, then it would be harder for Renamo to filibuster and harder for Frelimo to override legitimate Renamo concerns, because this would become public. With that kind of check, the actual composition of the CNE and its decision making rules become less important, because misconduct by either side would be public. Yet both sides actually prefer secrecy and want the ability to manipulate the process with no one knowing - and want the ability to blame the other side with the press having no independent way to check. Once both sides prefer secrecy, then the issues of membership and consensus becomes more important.

Similarly, there are a whole series of technical changes, proposed in the previous issue of the Bulletin (Number 26, April 2001) and by other organisations, which would reduce the number of errors and make the counting process more transparent. But neither party seems willing to agree with changes which will further open up the process to the press and national and international observers.

Perhaps both side are afraid to put their own shortcomings on view. This occurred in 1999 with computerisation, when both sides looked bad. The government appointee failed to have provincial computer systems checked and running in time, while Renamo failed to find computer experts who could make a coherent criticism or explanation of problems Renamo claimed existed.

Despite Renamo's failure to field sufficient people in 1999 - it could not find enough skilled people for senior posts on offer and could not find enough people with basic literacy to be poll watchers (delegados de lista) - Renamo remains convinced that if it has enough of its own people at all levels of the process it can prevent Frelimo from cheating. For example, its demands for 11-member district election commissions means it would have to find five people in each of 151 districts and cities - 755 literate and capable people who would be excluded from participation in Renamo's electoral activities. Increased complexity and a more ponderous election machine is likely to create more, not less, opportunity for manipulation, so Renamo's demands seem counter-productive.

However, one of Renamo's demands responds directly to the problem of lack of people. Each polling station counts its own votes. The results are summarised in an edital which is posted at the polling station and submitted to the higher level for inclusion in the provincial count. Poll watchers are encouraged to write a copy of the results and submit it to the district or provincial party office, so that the party can do a parallel count.

Renamo recognises that a failure in the past has been that illiterate poll watchers could not write down the results, and it now demands that the polling station president write a copy of the edital for each party poll watcher present, so that the parties can collect together official copies of the results of each polling station. This is a sensible demand and a rational technical response to a real problem. Both sides should accept this proposal, and then move forward to see if there are not other technical ways to respond to Renamo concerns. If enough of these sorts of checks could be created, then Renamo might feel that its demands for politicisation of STAE and the creation of an unworkable consensus system on the CNE were less important, and a political solution might be easier.
[JH]