Quick Election Update #2

Here is another very quick update on how the elections seem to have gone.

In the days immediately following the election, many observing bodies reported a free and fair process, including the African Union, European Union, and the Southern African Development Community.

However, it may turn out that the declaration was made prematurely. There were a few irregularities reported the day of the elections, but apparently not enough for the observers to call foul. Since election day, however, more and more fishy information has been coming out. Or information has not been coming out when it should.

One of the biggest complains has been a loooooong delay in results being released. In a country where there is a lot of suspicion of corruption, when the results aren't released in a timely manner, it makes people trust the results even less when they are finally made available. District counts should have been finished last Friday, October 17 and provincial by the 21st, but many of these deadlines aren't being met. The EU mission released a statement expressing "its concerns with the delays in the tabulation of results at district and provincial levels in some provinces, and considers that such mishaps in the tabulation process, added to the absence of official public explanations about these difficulties, hinders what has been an orderly start on election day," and stating that it "regrets the obstacles posed to the access of EU observers to information on the provincial tabulation in Cabo Delgado and Zambezia, when transparency and integrity should preside over the entire electoral process according to the law."

There have been a number of incidents that point to extreme disorganization in a best case scenario, if not serious fraud. For example, from the Mozambique Political Process Bulletin Published by the Center for Public Integrity:

On Sunday (Bulletin 65) we reported that the Tete city count stopped because there were 234 editais [official document stating the voting result from a polling station] and only 178 polling stations. The official STAE explanation yesterday was that some polling stations had more than one register book. Even if a polling station has two books, it is supposed to issue a single edital. But STAE says that in Tete staff erroneously wrote separate editais for each book.

We are now receiving reports of some polling stations, in Maputo and elsewhere, that had extra register books, sometimes called a “transfer list” (Lista de Transferidos) or simply an “extra voters list" (lista dos agregado). We are also seeing reports of polling stations where the number of voters is more than double the number of people on the register book as published in the lists of polling stations before the elections, which suggests they had an extra register book.

Or reports of unusually (nearly impossibly) high turnout in some areas that point to a high likelihood of ballot-box stuffing.

Reports of impossibly high turnouts are providing more evidence of ballot box stuffing. Turnouts of more than 80% of registered voters are highly unlikely in Mozambique, especially in rural areas where people have to walk long distances. It is much more likely that there has been ballot box stuffing, either putting unused ballot papers into the ballot box, or simply changing the results sheet (edital) at the end of the day. This occurs more easily in polling station where opposition parties have not been able to place delegates or polling station staff to watch the process.

Most extreme is Gaza, where five districts report very high turnouts: Chicualacuala 89%, Chigubo 82%, Mabalane 80%, Massangena 96% and Massingir 92%. These results are especially suspect when compared to equally loyal Frelimo areas of Gaza, such as Mandlakazi where the turnout was a more average 56%.

These five are small rural districts, but they have probably added 20,000 false votes for Frelimo candidate Filipe Nyussi.

The Electoral Observatory (EO) also points to suspiciously high turnouts in Guija, Gaza, where we do not have a district result yet.

Another suspect district is Ka Nanyaka in Maputo city, which reported a turnout of 79% compared to a city-wide turnout of 60%. Again the EO finds suspiciously high turnouts in the sample polling stations in that district.

Mabote district, Inhambane, with 81% turnout, was also reported by EO observers to have an impossibly high turnout.

EO data also point to ballot box stuffing in these districts:
Cabo Delgado: Muidumbe
Inhambane: Inhassoro, and Panda
Nampula: Ilha de Mocambique and Nacala-a-Velha
Niassa: Mecula
Tete: Cahora Bassa, Changara, and Zumbo

Most of these districts are strongly pro-Frelimo. The Tete districts are majority Frelimo with a significant Renamo vote. The Nampula districts are divided and hard fought. Ilha de Mocambique and Changara have a long history of ballot box stuffing in favour of Frelimo.

Historically, nearly all ballot box stuffing has been in favour of Frelimo and its presidential candidate.

The results that have been released indicate a victory by the incumbent party, with 57% of the vote. Although the Center for Public Integrity estimates that ballot-box stuffing increased votes for Filipe Nyusi by 100,000 votes. Using the Electoral Observatory sample count, we also estimate that there were problems such as very late opening or changed location for about 130 polling stations. Observers and party delegates reported cases of polling stations having an additional register book which was not on the official list of polling stations and register books. We suggest this happened in up to 250 polling stations. The full report and analysis is in the attached pdf version of this bulletin. However, the opposition parties are not prepared to accept this result. Afonso Dhlakama, the presidential candidate of the oldest, most established opposition party, responded to early results indicating a FRELIMO victory by asking for negotiations that could lead to a sharing of power by the two parties. He claimed that he did not want to negotiate because he wants to be president, but because he wants democracy in Mozambique. He has cited the unity governments in Kenya and Zimbabwe as examples.I am no fan of the violent tactics RENAMO has taken over the last year+, but this man does sometimes make sense when he talks. From Joseph Hanlon:

He is stressing that this is not about winning or losing elections. He says this was not a real election, and that diplomats should not accept in Africa an election which would not be acceptable in Europe. Thus he wants support for a unity government that would finally bring democracy to Mozambique.

I  was a little surprised that observers were so quick to declare the elections "free and fair" when there had been a number of irregularities. In fact, on October 21, the US Department of State finally issued a press release stating "important concerns about unequal access to the media, abuse of state resources, missing materials and registration books in polling stations, and the late opening of some polling stations. There were failures in the electoral administration, particularly with respect to the timely accreditation of national observers and party delegates."(Quoted here in English, or the original here in Portuguese). Interestingly, these problems of unequal access and abuse of state resources were happening all through the campaign process, but the statement didn't come until this delay in the release of results.

I will keep posting some updates as the post-election process continues.

The social and economic costs of fear

I wrote a post a few days ago in reaction to a line in a New York Times editorial on the US response to the Ebola outbreak that categorized many West African officials and workers as "incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." This didn't sit well with me for many reasons and I find myself reacting similarly to much of the coverage of the Ebola epidemic. The tone is (understandably) fearful, but touching on xenophobic, including the many calls to stop all flights coming from affected countries. While this might seem reasonable at first glance, it ignores the effect it would have on those countries, both economically and in terms of stopping the travel of very necessary health workers.

But in response to my blog post, a friend sent along an article about Nigeria's successful containment of Ebola. The government devised a "war-like approach" to dealing with the disease when it appeared, putting in place a command center with the Nigerian Government in charge, but in cooperation with international organizations from the World Health Organization to the US CDC: "Together with these organizations, we sit in one place, co-location in a designated facility, and we do joint planning, agree on strategies to be used, and implement these strategies based on a clear understanding that people are comfortable to deliver on specific tasks." They put four teams into action to inform the population, screen people crossing borders, manage potential cases and to hunt down anyone who may have had contact with an infected person in "a way that ensured ruthless efficiency."

The doctor in charge of the effort is Faisal Shuaib, a Nigerian physician who completed his medical training in Nigeria and a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He stepped away from his position heading the Nigerian Health Ministry's Polio eradication program to oversee the response to Ebola. He has been managing a team of over 500 public health workers and volunteers to monitor and contain the disease. As of October 9, more than a month had passed since the last Nigerian case had been discharged. 

I loved reading this story for a couple of reasons. First, as the person sending the link commented, "no incompetence noted..." It is a great example of the good work being done by affected nations to protect their people. But it also shows why the isolation response of "Quick, cancel all the flights!!" is so dangerous. Nigeria was so successful because of the competence of the doctor leading the charge, but also because of the coordination and cooperation among various international organizations and governments in the effort to stop the disease. 

Nigeria is wealthier than other West African countries and ranked higher on the UN's Human Development Index, so it may have been better positioned to respond to Ebola. But even so, they didn't respond alone. The government oversaw the campaign in cooperation with organizations that could supply expertise and with the funding support of the Gates Foundation that shifted $50 million to fighting Ebola. When asked what more must be done to protect people, Dr. Shuaib responded, "One thing that can change the outbreak is for nations to come together and deploy resources... Wealthier countries have to mobilize resources in a concerted manner, and they need to act now." 

Although it is mainly three countries that are being hit the hardest by Ebola, the response needs to come from the whole world. This is a humanitarian crisis that will have lasting economic and social effects, and it's not a Scylla-and-Charybdis rock-and-a-hard-place situation like Syria or the Ukraine. This is a tragedy killing thousands of people and gutting economies that were struggling to develop. The World Bank recently released a forecast that projects a loss of $1.6 billion in West Africa region if Ebola is contained but up to $25.2 billion if it continues to spread. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of long-term damage this would do to lives there even once the disease has been contained.

I don't live in a country affected by Ebola, but there is real fear that the outbreak will cause an economic contagion that spread beyond where the virus appears. As not everyone knows exactly how large and diverse Africa is, or how the disease spreads, there have been various panic responses. Planes have been quarantined because they were carrying passenger who got airsick and had been to "Africa," even if it was nowhere near the affected region. A friend who runs a non-profit selling crafts made in Uganda recently had a customer try to cancel an order for fear she could catch Ebola from the beaded necklaces. This kind of irrational fear could damage all African economies and create more prejudice against the continent as a whole, which does affect Mozambique. Addressing this possibility, the New York Times' recently quoted IMF managing director Christine Lagarde as saying, “We should be very careful not to terrify the planet in respect of the whole of Africa.”

So while it is very important for every country to screen very carefully anyone traveling from an affected area - Dr. Shuaib also emphasized this as a crucial step in stopping the spread of the disease - responding to the crisis by trying to pull away will have serious long term effects and won't help stop the disease, only coming together to fight it can do that. 

First very quick election update

Wednesday was the big day here in Mozambique: national elections. After last year's municipal elections, yesterday was the day to vote for a new president, as well as members of the Assembleia da Republica and provincial assemblies. Following a year and half of political unrest that finally cooled with the signing of a new Peace Deal between the ruling FRELIMO party and the main opposition party RENAMO, no one knew how the elections would go.

And it is still hard to say. It appears that although the days leading up to the election were calmer than the final days of last year's campaign, the election itself had more incidents. All online sources that tracked information supplied by citizens reported numerous instances of attempted fraud, problems encountered by election observers and officials coming from opposition parties, some violence and irregularities in the lists of registered voters. From J. Hanlon's election news bulletin:

There are a growing number of reports of the discovery of ballot papers already marked for Frelimo and which involve polling station staff or other officials.

In Angonia, Tete, Jeremias Atanasio, the president of a polling station in Domue primary school, was arrested when he was found with ballot papers already marked for Frelimo.

In Chidenguele, Gaza, observers caught a new form of ballot box stuffing. They saw a member of an unknown observer group pick up ballot papers from the main table (with the obvious agreement of the polling station staff), and put them into a slot under the booth where voters mark their ballot paper. When an observer went there and took out the ballot papers, he found them marked for Frelimo (see photos in the attached pdf). The idea appears to be that when a Frelimo member who had been warned in advance went to that booth and marked and folded up their ballot papers, they would take extra ballot papers from the slot and fold in extra ones as well, thus putting more than one ballot paper in each box.

In Beira spare ballot boxes have been found.

Meanwhile, there have been several other reports of pre-marked ballot papers being found. In Dondo a reporter for the newspaper Zambeze was attacked and had his camera confiscated after he took pictures showing polling station staff marking ballot papers for Frelimo, and of a teacher putting the extra votes in the ballot boxes. He also filmed a discussion between polling station staff and party members, but has now had his pictures taken away. This was at Eduardo Mondlane primary school.

In Coalane in Quelimane an observer caught a person with 17 pre-marked ballot papers.

And the Youth Parliament (Parlamento Juvenil, PJ), community radios (o Forum das Radios Comunitarias de Mocambique, FORCOM), the Human Rights League (a Liga Mocambicana dos Direitos Humanos, LDH), the Women's Forum (o Forum Mulher) and the Public Integrity Centre (o Centro de Integridade Publica, CIP) have issued a joint statement in which they say that that "in Quelimane city 4 clandestine ballot boxes were found in a police car registration PRM 00313. Local people say that the ballot boxes were given to two people who left in cars with registrations ACU 173 MC e ADJ 481 MC".

Based on supporters during the campaign and initial results, it appears that RENAMO made a better showing than some expected and MDM, the newer, up-and-coming opposition party that saw a fair amount of success in last year's mayoral elections, may have struggled. It will be very interesting to see the official results and how people respond to them. As of this morning, RENAMO is not accepting the initial projections of a FRELIMO victory.

Many are seeing a FRELIMO victory as a foregone conclusion, but people are also upset about the widespread fraud. The fraud appears in so many different flavors, beyond the ballot box stuffing cited above. O Partido can stack the polling station staff with party sympathizers, since they run the Election Commission. Supposedly, here in Chimoio, all of the voting table presidents were called in for a meeting with FRELIMO the night before elections. This is after the commission went against the recommendations of trainers for who to place as president, presumably in order to have their own people in charge. During the campaign, they repeatedly used state resources - from cars and trucks to police and military - to support their cause. Never mind the fact that they run all the major news outlets and could slant coverage to favor their own party. Even Mcel (Moçambique Celular the cell provider with government backing) was sending "news" items via text such as, "Nyusi's campaign is running strong!"or "MDM backers in Nampula leave campaign to back Nyusi." (Nyusi being the FRELIMO candidate).

On the other side, some men from RENAMO attacked a polling station and burned ballot boxes they believed to contain fraudulent ballots. There were reports of other violent acts perpetrated by RENAMO leading up to the election, too. Hear in Manica, I heard about MDM appointed polling staff being shut out of training sessions either because of terrible disorganization on the part of the party, or because their spots had been sold. No one came out of these elections looking squeaky clean.

My only hope is that any post-election conflicts are resolved peacefully and Mozambique is left in a better position to continue along its path to a better life for all citizens. I will continue to post quick updates as the news comes in.

Choose Your Words Carefully

I finally wrote my first Letter to the Editor (finally showing that I am my father's daughter!) It hasn’t been published, but it felt good. It was in response to an editorial I read on the New York Times' website, "Stopping Ebola in America, " about steps the US needs to take to keep Ebola in check. I had no problem with most of the points made in the piece, but then I came to a line that just made me cringe: "There is room to improve the screening in West Africa, where government officials and workers are often incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." I had to respond.

It has been interesting following the coverage of the Ebola epidemic from here in Mozambique. This part of Africa is far from the outbreak and I would guess there is less transit between the affected area and Mozambique than there is with the US. The Mozambican government put plenty of preventative measures in place: checking passengers traveling from affected areas, setting up a unit in the Maputo hospital to deal with any potential cases, but I wasn't surprised to hear that the infection appeared in the US before here. Despite being on the same continent as the outbreak, Mozambique is very far from Liberia and travel between the countries is difficult. So where I live, we aren't directly affected by Ebola, but the coverage in the news has touched on many things that feel relevant to me, particularly because "Africa" is often treated as a single entity in US and Western media.

It may not be surprising to hear that living in Africa for two years has changed the way I read news and commentary about the continent; how the people and cultures here are portrayed feels much more personal when applied to my friends, colleagues, students and neighbors. I can't say that I have anything particularly original to say on the subject; most of these things have been said repeatedly by all sorts of commentators, but here goes anyways. If nothing else, I need the catharsis of getting my feelings on the page.  

Africa isn't homogeneous. Which is not just to say that it is up of different countries, cultures and ethnicities with varied histories, traditions, and current ways of life. It also means that it is home to millions of individuals with personalities and stories and temperaments. And feelings. Feelings which can get hurt when people say insensitive things about them. Many of these individuals are not poor, incompetent people living in the bush, as the statement in the Times piece seems to want to portray. Some are intelligent, motivated, educated, and engaged. And this population knows how Western media talks about Africa as a whole. I will never forget the acute embarrassment at the beginning of my second semester teaching English here.

I like to start out my first class with a new group by opening the floor to questions. They are allowed to ask whatever they want, as long as it is in English. The vast majority are similar: "How old are you?" "Are you married?" "How long have you been in Mozambique?" "What do you think of Mozambique?" But one of my students threw out: "What do people in America think of Africa?" Caught off guard,  I stumbled over a response that basically amounted to: "Well, different people think different things, depending on their experience and knowledge, some people don't know a lot, but others have been here..." He listened to my awkward rambling and then hit me with, "It's just that I saw this American movie once and there was a kid who was being bad and his mom told him, 'If you don't stop, I'm going to send you to Africa!' So, people must think it's a bad place to be, right?"

How to respond to this?! I took a deep breath and tried to explain that Americans tend to focus on bad news in general, not just about Africa, and since there are places with wars and hunger and negative things, sometimes this gets in the news more than the good things and that shapes people's ideas. Partly wanting to save a little face, partly just not wanting him to think that all Americans believe Africa is where you get sent when you misbehave.

When the New York Times makes the statement that government officials and workers in West Africa are "often incompetent," it does damage in so many ways.

• It bunches together an entire region consisting of many countries (17, according to the UN) as though they are one. Nigeria is not Mali, and Mauritania is not Sierra Leone. There may be cultural similarities among some of the countries, but to make a sweeping statement about their governments and capacities as though they can all be equated is like making a statement about the management of American companies as though Walmart is the same as a Manhattan bodega is the same as LL Bean.
• It reinforces a damaging stereotype regarding the abilities of Africans to take care of themselves, which supports the idea that they need us to come in and save them. The editorial was signed by the New York Times’ editorial board. I am very curious to know who on that board is an expert in West African governance. On what are they basing their assertion? Their own extensive personal experience? Long-term study of the region? Or is anecdotal and based on prejudice? We have no way of knowing. The fact that an anonymous group can dismiss the abilities of an entire region without any claim to expertise is unfair; but Western intellectuals rarely hesitate to opine on what’s wrong in Africa and propose solutions without necessarily having a lot of experience living in the region and we accept it. "Experts" who have studied one country can be called on to solve problems on the other side of the continent.
• It oversimplifies a complex problem. It stands to reason that an outbreak like the one happening now is exacerbated by inadequately trained medical personnel who don’t have access to decent equipment and facilities. Look at the whole statement: "There is room to improve the screening in West Africa, where government officials and workers are often incompetent and in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." It starts out okay: sure, there is room to improve screening. Then comes that word, “incompetent.” I have already made clear my feelings on that. But it is followed by, “…in some cases unable to use the temperature devices they have been given." So, if someone gives medical workers a new piece of technology without the proper training on how to use it, who is incompetent? 

To me, if someone wants to get involved in development work, they need to be committed to first understanding the context of the problem they are addressing. Next, they need to work with local actors to identify possible solutions. But most importantly, that solution can’t be new equipment or technology without the necessary training. There needs to be real capacity building in order for any difference to be made. The classic example is the use of mosquito nets in the fight against malaria. American organizations collect money, buy bed-nets and ship them to rural Mozambique. Then they are surprised to find that people, never having seen a bed net before and receiving no instruction on how to use one, use them to fish or o protect their crops from bugs.

All this is to say, the statement made by the Times’ editorial board is only one instance in a pattern of how West Africa, Africa as a whole, and African people are portrayed in Western media: as homogeneously incompetent. The fact that it is okay for this statement to be made by an anonymous group not claiming to have any expertise in the region reflects the attitude that most Americans are well-educated and competent enough to give advice regarding development (a problem I have with my own presence here). It also shows the laziness of people wanting to solve complex social issues with technological interventions alone, not a long-term commitment to building the capacity of the local populations. This is bad on its own, but made worse by the fact that the subjects of such a statement can read it and this will inform all of their interactions with Westerners.

As I concluded my letter to the editor: In summary, such a casual assertion of ineptitude that paints an entire region as "less than," only serves to reinforce a simplistic version of a historically fraught power relationship between Africa and the West. It sells short everyone involved.