The Constitutional Council will fail

Good afternoon. Lúcia Ribeiro, the president of the Constitutional Council, is not used to the limelight, but she has been getting the kind of exposure more associated with a fashionable celebrity recently. While the council has been ploughing through boxes of documents to check the disputed results of October's elections, Ribeiro has been giving interviews and her meetings have been broadcast in live videos, an unfamiliar role for a judge used to working behind closed doors.

The Constitutional Council is undoubtedly feeling under pressure from the whirlwind of protests against election fraud and against ruling party Frelimo, which have shaken the country for nearly two months. The council, whose job it is to confirm the election results, has in the past been accused of being in the pocket of Frelimo, something to which it contributed by ignoring clear evidence of fraud in last year’s local elections. The violence of the protests combined with this perception have put the judges in a dangerous position, as this newsletter recently noted. Hence the council’s desire to carry out a PR campaign to defend its work.

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From the Zitamar Live Blog:

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Clashes between police and demonstrators broke out yesterday afternoon at the Ressano Garcia border post with South Africa, leaving at least three dead and several injured. The clashes followed an attempt by the police to reopen the crossing to heavy goods lorries, after it had been blocked by demonstrators. Only light vehicles were getting through. After negotiations failed, police used live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the protesters. Videos shared on social media showed police firing tear gas into residential areas. One of the people killed was shot while doing a Facebook Live broadcast. The protesters reportedly tried to set fire to public and private buildings, including a bank branch, the Ressano Garcia goods depot and the former migration offices. The border remained closed for the rest of the night. By this morning, however, traffic had returned to normal. The border crossing has been repeatedly blocked recently due to protests provoked by the disputed results of October’s elections.

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Unfortunately, what Ribeiro’s media appearances have made clear is that the Constitutional Council is not going to succeed in producing a reliable result. The council has chosen only to check the documents recording the process of counting and tabulating votes: the results sheets (editais) and the minutes (actas) from each voting table. What it has not done, as Ribeiro told journalists yesterday, is recount the votes, although the original ballot papers should still exist.