An initiative of
the National Academy of Public Administration, 
and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, 
Princeton University




Oral History Program 	Series: 		Elections
				Interview no.:	N10





Interviewee: 		Ismael Valigy
			
Interviewer:		Amy Mawson

Date of Interview: 	26 January 2010

Location:		Maputo
			Mozambique		



Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA
www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties


MAWSON:	My name is Amy Mawson, and I'm here with Ismael Valigy. The date is the 26th of January, 2010, and we're going to be discussing, I think, the '94 elections. Thank you very much, first of all, for agreeing to the interview. We really appreciate your time. Could you please start off, perhaps, by telling me about the role that you played on the CNE [Commissão Nacional de Eleiçðes] Election Commission in '94, and maybe also a little bit of the background of how you got into that position?

VALIGY:	It was not easy for the '94 election, because it was the first multi-party election after the war, and the level of confidence was not very good among all of the political parties in Mozambique. What we did to discuss in the Rome agreement what we could do: they divided the protocol in different items. One of them was about the election, where they decided-the government and RENAMO-at that time in Rome, they decided to create a National Election Commission. After that we discussed in Mozambique-after the peace agreement in Rome-discussed how we could manage, how could we create the electoral law. Inside that discussion, we created a forum with all of the parties created at that time, including RENAMO [Resistência Nacional Moçambicana]. It was not easy to write the electoral law, because the level of confidence was very, very-how can I say-? At that time we didn't have, all of the parties didn't have any kind of confidence among them. It was not an easy job to write the electoral law. 

	We could solve the problem after a lot of different meetings, plenaries, meetings between parties, in order to see how we could have a consensus in terms of the contents of the law. At that time there were two or three important questions. The first one was the composition of the National Election Commission. After a lot of time to discuss this issue, we decided-we agreed to have 10 people who would represent the government, seven people representing RENAMO, and three others representing the different other parties.  The total was 20. The 21st would be elected after the first meeting of the National Electoral Commission to be the president of the National Electoral Commission. We did it; it was not easy. After two days of meetings we decided to have Mr. Mazula, Brazão Mazula, as the president of the National Electoral Commission, who was a candidate of the three-the other political parties.        

MAWSON:	The opposition? 

VALIGY:	No RENAMO, no government. He was not a candidate of RENAMO nor a candidate of the government. They came from outside, and we elected Mazula as a person who could conduct the National Electoral Commission. 

	A second issue was the composition of the technical secretariat. Because the same problems were being decided. It was a lack of confidence. What we decided was to have the administrative team conduct the technical issue in terms of the organization of the election. We agreed to have one appointed by the government as a civil servant to be a director. We agreed to have a deputy director appointed by RENAMO. In different groups, we had two representatives of the government and one of RENAMO.    

MAWSON:	Which groups were those?

VALIGY:	It was for organization of operations and organization of elections with the judicial group, and another one was the civic education at that time, and information. To disseminate all of the issues regarding the election to prepare people-because what was the first election in Mozambique, in fact-to educate people to vote, and so on. It was that group of civic education and information. But we did it. 

	The third issue, which was difficult to discuss at that time, when we were creating the electoral law, was how we would vote inside the National Electoral Commission: majority, two-thirds, what kind of method of voting we would agree on. It was very, very difficult to have an easy agreement on that. What we decided was that we must decide everything by consensus. It is a part of electoral law. It was not a decision which we took for everyone, but it was a decision which we found as a solution for this difficulty which we undertook at that time. It was OK. We started to work. We started to organize the election. We started to have a lot of issues to decide.

MAWSON:	Can I ask you-sorry, I hope you don't mind my interrupting just for some clarification. When you were appointed to the CNE, had you been involved in the negotiations for the-? 

VALIGY:	Yes, because I started to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in '90. At that time, we finished adopting the '90 constitution in Mozambique, which opened the possibility for the multiparty election, and to have more than one party we changed from monopartyism to two: multipartyism. At that time we started to see how we could organize a multiparty election in Mozambique. I was invited to represent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the multisectorial group to work on the election issues in terms of how we could organize, what we could do in order to prepare a very good election in Mozambique.

	At that time we took the opportunity to travel to see other situations in different countries, like Angola, like Haiti, like South Africa, Namibia, and a lot of countries where we could be involved. Technicians were coming in from other countries to see how they organized elections. After that we made some comparative studies with other countries in terms of legislation in order to produce our own legislation.  

MAWSON:	So this multisectorial group was working from when?

VALIGY:	From different ministerial-: transport, justice, administration. 

MAWSON:	What year-do you remember roughly when you started working in this group?

VALIGY:	Yes, it was '92, after the general peace agreements, but before the group was reduced. Then we opened it, for more people from other sectors to be involved in that group, to implement the peace agreement. It was the reason we received people from different ministries.  At that time I had some experience in terms of election organization, and in '93, when the National Election Commission was created, I was invited by the government to be part of the National Election Commission. But I am a diplomat, in fact, in terms of professional career. But they invited me, I think, because I was involved before in terms of getting some experience in organizing the election.  

MAWSON:	So were you involved in the negotiations between the parties on the electoral law as well?

VALIGY:	Yes, in Maputo, not in Rome. I was not part of the negotiation in Rome, but after that I was a member of the team from the government which was involved in the discussion.

MAWSON:	Just so I understand, the GPA was signed, the General Peace Agreement was signed in '92. Then you started on the multisectorial group, on the government side-,

VALIGY:	Yes.

MAWSON:	Produced the first draft-,

VALIGY:	And organized a multiparty conference in order to involve all of the different political parties to discuss together the electoral law. 

MAWSON:	When was that-do you remember which month?

VALIGY:	Yes, yes, it was in the beginning of' '93. 

MAWSON:	The beginning of '93, OK. 

VALIGY:	Because in October the peace agreement was signed, and in December we did an international conference to get research to implement the peace agreement. This conference would be in Rome. After that, we started to move on in terms of the election. By then different components, refugees and displaced people, the army-to disarm people and to create a new army-different components of the-in order to prepare the election. 

	One of the components was just for the election. It was the team in which I was involved.

MAWSON:	So you were working on this until early '93. Then you had the multi-party conference which was to negotiate between the different parties the final electoral law.

VALIGY:	Yes, until the middle of '93, the second semester of '93.

MAWSON:	Then the STAE [Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration] was appointed at the CNE?

VALIGY:	We created a technical secretariat in which I was involved, but it is not a secretariat decided by the electoral law. It was the first group, technician group, which worked to create conditions for the election. After the adoption of the electoral law, we created this new STAE technical secretariat at the same time that we created the National Electoral Commission.

MAWSON:	I see, so there was a precursor to this STAE; it was this technical group.

VALIGY:	Yes, the STAE was considered our technical team to implement our decision. The decision made by the National Electoral Commission was implemented by the STAE in the land.

MAWSON:	So the electoral law was adopted November 1993, is that right?

VALIGY:	I think, November, October. I'm not sure about that.

MAWSON:	Then after that, the CNE was appointed.

VALIGY:	Yes.

MAWSON:	So tell me a little bit about the first meeting that you had.

VALIGY:	We decided in terms of the negotiation among the government and the political parties, and then we sent the law to the parliament to be approved. Only after that, we started to create the organs for the election.  

MAWSON:	So that was happening in January '94.

VALIGY:	Yes, the first part of January '94. No, the end of '93. 

MAWSON:	The end of '93, OK. Could you tell me a little bit about the very first meeting you had when you were on the CNE?

VALIGY:	Yes, the first meeting was among our 20: seven from RENAMO, three from another party, no army party, and 10 from the government. Just the objective of this meeting was to elect the president. A lot of people presented candidates, and the candidate chosen was Mazula. It was our first meeting, just for this objective. The beginning of the meeting was conducted by the minister of justice. He opened the meeting, and they led the meeting. 

MAWSON:	It was Dauto?

VALIGY:	Yes, it was Dauto [Ussumane] at that time. The two vice presidents, one from the government and another one from RENAMO, they conducted jointly the rest of the electoral process of the president.  

MAWSON:	So how was that first meeting. I'm just trying to get an idea of what the atmosphere was like.

VALIGY:	It was very tense atmosphere, because the problem of confidence stayed there at the high level. The people appointed as candidates were coming from different parts, and so on. To choose one was not easy.

MAWSON:	When to have the elections?

VALIGY:	For the president. 

MAWSON:	I see. So Mazula, you said, was the candidate of the unarmed opposition?

VALIGY:	Yes.

MAWSON:	That's right? So FRELIMO [Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, Liberation Front of Mozambique] was not involved in wanting Mazula? 

VALIGY:	FRELIMO as a party was not involved directly. Who was involved was the government, because it was a right government. They had the right to organize everything. The government wouldn't negotiate with the rebels, with RENAMO, who were considered rebels at this time. FRELIMO as a party, they were different. You could see the representative of FRELIMO there; no representative of FRELIMO was at that time was representative of the government. But other parties, they had at that time representatives like the RENAMO seven, and non-army party. 

MAWSON:	So at the first meeting you elected Mazula President.

VALIGY:	Mazula; then we started to work on different issues of the election: the calendar, the problem of actually when we could propose to have the election, to submit the proposal to the president, and present whether we agreed or didn't agree. But we must take a lot of steps to do that. We made a national census to know how many people we could have over 18 to vote, the distribution of the mandates, in each province. There were a lot of issues which we had to do at that time to organize the election.

MAWSON:	If you could maybe walk me through-. 

VALIGY:	To buy cars, to have other conditions, to organize the election, to move this. 

MAWSON:	I know this was a long time ago, and I have been struggling sometimes in some of my interviews to get people to talk about the details, because people don't remember. But it seems like you have a very good memory. So if you could possible talk me through-OK, you have the first meeting, you've elected the President. Mazula comes to chair the next meeting.

VALIGY:	Yes, with the two vice presidents. 

MAWSON:	So if you could sort of walk me through, if you remember, what happens when. You were talking about this-. 

VALIGY:	That matter was not a very difficult matter in terms of the dates for making the census; the people who could do that, to buy cars and to have helicopters and planes to work, to prepare the material for census, and then to vote, to choose people to make a tender to have the company which will produce the voting material and to go there to see, to control the production of material. All of that process was conducted by a joint team which involved one from the government, another from RENAMO, and another from the other party, non-army party. Just because we must-to have confidence, not to go to a member of the government, nor RENAMO. We did everything jointly. One representative of each group inside the National Election Commission, including in the STAE. I was a member of the National Election Commission, which traveled to London to control the production of the material for the census and afterwards material for voting. 

MAWSON:	When you say census, is that the voter registration?

VALIGY:	The voter registration, yes. 

MAWSON:	So when you were going through these more technical issues, deciding, as you say, which company was going to get the tender-  

VALIGY:	It's Thomas De La Rue. 

MAWSON:	When you were deciding these things, how were you working together with-for example, you were on the government side, so what was it like, the working relationship?

VALIGY:	For those kinds of questions, it was easy to have consensus among the members. We also had some problems in terms of difficulty of consensus. The first one was to introduce the counting of votes and the distribution of mandates. We agreed with some support for the government and from the Italian government and other people, other partners, to buy computers and to have software for that, and so on. But it was very difficult for RENAMO to agree on the computers. They preferred at that time to have manual processing of everything. The method which we used for the distribution of mandate was not-[Interruption].

MAWSON:	OK, we can continue.

VALIGY:	It was the most difficult issue at that time during our discussion. But we could have a consensus to go ahead with the process. At that time, we involved a lot of people outside National Electoral Commission to make some-how can I say-to make some lobby, mainly to RENAMO, because they at that time suspected everything. Everything we were proposing they suspected, particularly in terms of the information, in terms of the computer system. 

	They heard that in Angola the same company, Thomas De La Rue, they did everything, voting materials and everything like that, and Unida [United Front of Mozambique] at that time didn't agree with the process. When they learned that the selected company was the same, Thomas De La Rue-who selected the company was not the government, it was the European Union delegation, because they paid for that. They opened an international tender and a lot of companies tried to win that; it was Thomas De La Rue because they had a lot of experience working with the security materials, and so on. They suspected the involvement of Thomas De La Rue at that time. We had some help from the diplomats here in Maputo: Italians, Americans, diplomats, the European Commission at that time. They got involved to show that there were no dangerous things in this process-the process was clear, and don't worry about that. Don't worry about that, you can go ahead.

	Finally, on the day of voting-one day, two days before-RENAMO said that they will not participate in the electoral process. They tried to subvert the electoral process, because I think they learned that they didn't have a chance to win the election at that time. But international pressure on RENAMO was very high. Then the next day, the day of the election, we sent the president, Mazula, to Radio Mozambique in order to inform the people, in the first journal at 5 o'clock, I think, to inform that the voting day would go ahead, we would vote at that time. The people, all of the people went to the polling station and they voted, including in the areas where RENAMO had the most influence, particularly Sofala, particularly Maringué, which was the headquarters of RENAMO at that time. They voted. 

	Then we started another problem, the problem of fraudulent process. The local observation groups, the foreign observation groups including the Commonwealth, including the Carter Center, a lot of international institutions came here to see all of the process, the registration first and then up to the voting day. After the voting day we presented how we were counting the ballots. The process to count the ballots at that time is the same which we have now. First in the polling station the members of the team count in front of all of the political representatives there and the international observation groups and with the other delegates there. Then the close the polls and they prepare the-how can I say in English-after, to register the number of the votes for each candidate, political party or presidential candidate. 

	Then all of the representatives there signed at that time, and they took a copy. After that they sent the maps to the districts and then to the provinces and finally to the capital, to Maputo, to the headquarters of CNE. Then, here, we went to the voting which the people there considered invalid or null, and we verifed again all of the voting in order to say, no, this is valid, this is not valid; jointly, all of the members of CNE and members of STAE at that time. The result of that, the sheet was signed: FRELIMO won the election, and for the proclamation of the results, we must have consensus in terms of the final map. We must agree, all of us, the 21 members of the National Election Commission. 

	We started the meeting, I remember, in the morning, around 10 o'clock, and we only finished the meeting to discuss the results around 5 o'clock in the morning, the next day, 5 o'clock in the morning. Because the people-first, all of the member governments agreed to sign the maps, the results. Then the representative of the non-army parties, they agreed and they signed. 

	After that, the difficulty was the members of RENAMO. They received a call from Dhlakama not authorizing them to sign the registration map, the results. But during the discussion, one by one they agreed to sign. The last one was the vice-president of RENAMO, which only agreed around 5 or 7 o'clock, I don't remember exactly, but in the morning they agreed to sign, and only after that we went to the parliament around 11 o'clock to announce the final results. But it was a very, very difficult process.

	The problem is, what we wanted to preserve at that time is the peaceful situation-the reason we pushed for discussion until we got the consensus. In order to go according to the law, we spent a lot of time to discussing, we spent a lot of time to get consensus among all of the members of the National Electoral Commission.     

MAWSON:	Was that the most tense?

VALIGY:	Yes, it was the proclamation of the result, the day of the voting and the proclamation of results because, first, they didn't agree with the results. They considered that during the process there were a lot of fraudulent methods and something like that. But they couldn't prove anything, it was just trying not to accept the final results of the election. But the situation, if you see in '94, '99, 2004, 2009, the positions are the same every time. When they lose they didn't agree, but they were losing in all of the electoral process.

	Then the situation is that-look now, for example: they lost the process, the election, and they talked to all of the members elected to the parliament, members of RENAMO, not to take their place there.  But you know, if you have one mandate in the parliament, OK, you have some conditions in terms of salary and some other benefits. If you have the second mandate, after the second mandate, we can stay for all your life with the same condition. Without a member of the parliament, because you stay there twice, and all of the benefits you can keep with you. 

MAWSON:	For life?

VALIGY:	For life, yes.

MAWSON:	So if you've been voted twice, then you keep your benefits for life?

VALIGY:	Yes. If you have two mandates in the parliament. It is one of the big reasons why the members of RENAMO didn't agree with the decision of its boss, because it was a possibility for a lot of them to take the second mandate. After that they can't lose, the salary is there, the condition, the status is there for all their lives.

MAWSON:	Who pays for that?

VALIGY:	The government. The people. 

MAWSON:	It must be very expensive.

VALIGY:	But the problem is-the same thing in '94: there is no price to have a peaceful situation. Any price is good. But what we are looking for is stability. What we did in '94 was guarantee that stability until '99-until 2004, and in 2005 they discussed in the parliament changing the electoral law. What they agreed was not to have representatives of political party directly, like in '94, but according to the number of seats in the parliament, the groups could have the proportional members in the National Electoral Commission. But the majority of the members came into the civil society. 

MAWSON:	So in '98, the municipal elections for '99, national for the 2003, for the 2004 elections, always had this- 

VALIGY:	With the political- 

MAWSON:	The political representatives, and it was negotiated each time.

VALIGY:	No, not negotiated, because in '99 the law was changed. The process of vote inside the National Electoral Commission goes for the majority, not consensus. They tried to find-until to go to the consensus. But when they didn't get the consensus, the majority could decide. In '94 was only the first and the last time when the voting process was by consensus. 

MAWSON:	But I was saying in '98, '99, up until 2004, the composition of the CNE was- 

VALIGY:	Representative of political parties. 

MAWSON:	Yes, but it changed, right? The number at each election, the number of- 

VALIGY:	Yes, the number of members, the number of members was changed.

MAWSON:	So how did they decide?

VALIGY:	They decided in the parliament.

MAWSON:	In the parliament.

VALIGY:	In the parliament, not in the National Electoral Commission. The parliament conducts the modification of the electoral law. It was made in the parliament among all of the members of parliament, whether representative of RENAMO and FRELIMO and so on, and other political parties there. 

MAWSON:	Then for the 2004 elections, in advance of the 2004 elections, then they made a change to say, OK-

VALIGY:	They made some changes. One of the changes was the number of the members, because it didn't make sense to have 21 members like in '94; it was too expensive for the government, for the budget, because they had some conditions in terms of security, drivers and cars and other benefits. It was a lot of money for that. They reduced the number.

MAWSON:	So in '94 there were 21. In '98, do you know, was it still 21?

VALIGY:	In '98, I think, it was 19. I'm not sure about that. They reduced also for 16, and now it is 13. 

MAWSON:	So do you know, for '99 it was 16, or was it still-?

VALIGY:	It is less than 19. 

MAWSON:	Can I just ask you-going back to '94, because I have heard lots of people talk about the importance of Brazão Mazula's character, his personality was important. What do you think about this? Is this an accurate representation? 

VALIGY:	I think that Mazula plays, at that time, an important role. In fact, why? Let me explain to you. Mazula came in not as a candidate of FRELIMO, the government, not a candidate of RENAMO. He was the candidate of a small group of political parties, and it is an important issue to consider in terms of the acceptance of all of the other members of the National Electoral Commission-looks like FRELIMO, government, or RENAMO.

	Second, Mazula was my colleague in education, in the Ministry of Education at the time from '77, '78. By '86-he was a teacher at that time before going to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mazula in '80, something like that, went to Brazil to study. He did-in Mozambique he did the licenciatura degree, then around four years; then he did a master's degree continually for more two years, and then he did a PhD. He spent a lot of time outside Mozambique. 

	He didn't have directly any kind of involvement with any political party, apparently. But, in fact, before he went to Brazil he was a member of FRELIMO. He spent some official position in education. He was a provincial director, head of department in the province, national director here in the Ministry of Education before he went to Brazil. But a lot of people don't have that kind of...  

MAWSON:	Memory.

VALIGY:	Memories, yes. And for a lot of people, Mazula is an independent person, and he is a good one to drive the electoral process. The second reason. The third reason is, in fact, he was a seminarian before he went into education. The personality of people who went to seminary is a little bit different. They are very calm people, and they have patience to hear people and to build some ability to negotiate, and something that just drives to create a consensus among people. He had a very important role at that time, but he was supported by a lot of people inside the National Relations Commission, which had some good sense, including some members of RENAMO. He had before some academic background, and they could at that time understand the process and see the clarity of the process and agree. It is the end, trying to convince their colleague. They played also a very important process.

MAWSON:	Who do you think among the people on the CNE, from your perspective, were the people who were good at that sort of listening and mediating those sorts of roles?

VALIGY:	It depends. There were some people that could openly negotiate, but there were others which were took at that time extreme positions: not to see the transparency of the process but just to try to highlight the interests of their own parties. At that time it was very difficult to convince them that the process is that the people will decide who will win the election. It is not our job to decide. We are driving the process only, not to decide in name of the people of Mozambique. But it was not easy. But it was a very, very good experience in terms of conducting negotiations to get some consensus, in order to give something and to lose another one. Something like that. It was an interesting process. 

	But for them now, for the members of the National Electoral Commission, it was very easy, because the majority can decide. The political sensibility was secondary, it was not a priority. For us, it is the political sensibility. At that time RENAMO stayed with army people in some areas of Mozambique, and it was not easy to prevail the peaceful situation. It was very important the role of the National Electoral Commission, the role of international observers, the international community. They played a very important role in Mozambique. 

	The ONUMOZ [United Nations Operation in Mozambique], the United Nations Mission here for the conduction of the...

MAWSON:	The transition?

VALIGY:	The transition process. But in fact, it is a transition from one kind of political system to another one. It is not a transition in order to drive the country, because at the time we were still having a government in fact. The government tried not to interfere in all of the process, because it was a government elected by FRELIMO, composed only by members of FRELIMO. What they did was, they gave all of the power to the National Election Commission, to the other commissions for demobilization, commission for the refugees, the commission for displaced people, and to disarm both arms, to create a new army; join the people from RENAMO guerillas and form the government troops. 

MAWSON:	But the unified army was not in place in time for the elections, right? 

VALIGY:	It was a small process. It was gradually, after the election-but before, what they did was to put them in some different place, to disarm them and then to decide how many people will be part of the new army. Then they chose some people from RENAMO and other ones from the army, the government army. Those people were conducted for any particular place in order to receive some training to be part of the new army.

	The other one, the remaining people, they received some financial support for I think six months in Maputo, and then they received the remaining amount only in their own residence, their district. Because if they received all of the money here in Maputo, they could stay for any time, all the time in Maputo. But the interest was to separate those people, to give them a new life. They received some material, some instruments, for agriculture, according to what they decide. If they wanted to go to agriculture production, if they wanted to have some training to do another job, as a mechanic, anything.

MAWSON:	So by the time the elections came the demobilization process was more or less done and they were just waiting to form the new army?

VALIGY:	No, , it was in parallel process. It was a process which was conducted by the United Nations, by ONUMOZ at that time.

MAWSON:	So do you know when everything got finished with that?

VALIGY:	It was by the end of the election.

MAWSON:	By the end of the election, OK. 

VALIGY:	What we stayed doing after the election was the problem of refugees, displaced people, and the mining process, which we are still doing, but the remaining mines are a small number now. But at that time there was a very, very large number of mines.  

MAWSON:	Going back to some of the details, if you don't mind: earlier on you were talking about the controversy over the computer system that was chosen in order to tabulate the results, and how RENAMO was worried because it was the same company that was used in Angola. 

VALIGY:	I think that was a lack of information.

MAWSON:	I was just wondering when that was? Do you happen to remember the rough dates when that debate was going on about the computer system?

VALIGY:	Yes, it was during '94.

MAWSON:	Was it in February or March, do you remember?

VALIGY:	Before the election, the election was in October. We discussed from May, June until I think September, maybe, how we can drive the process in terms of the computer system.

MAWSON:	And for the voter registration, it was originally meant to go from June 1st until August 15th, but then it was extended until September 2nd, I think. It was extended because of the difficulties in accessing-

VALIGY:	Yes, difficult to access some places, and at that time is the rainy period. It is not easy to go to some areas inside the country. Then people-it is not easy to move. What we created at the time, Brigadas Móviles, which can go-

MAWSON:	Mobile brigades.

VALIGY:	Yes, which go to the place where the people are, not to wait for the people to come in. It was very important because we opened up the possibility for a lot of other people to make the registration.

MAWSON:	If I could just continue to ask you a few more questions-do you still have time? 

VALIGY:	That's OK. 

MAWSON:	Some people I've heard-they told me last week when I was interviewing people-some people have said that the CNE, because of this composition that was quite complicated, that sometimes the decision-making was a bit slower than people would have liked. Do you think that's true? Was that just because of the composition, there was no way around it?

VALIGY:	No, I think that in fact it was a little bit slow. Without any impact for the normal people, because it was a private discussion inside the CNE, we didn't publicize everything. We discussed among ourselves, and when we finished we didn't have necessity to inform that we agreed with that. We only did the internal procedures as a result of the consensus we had, and we signed, and just for our internal material, not to publicize. We decided to have one spokesman of the CNE who after our session, when we saw that there were some important problems to clarify for the people, would go to the medias in order to inform: oh, we agree on that. Not to put out of CNE our contradictions, our internal contradictions. We just say that our discussion didn't have any kind of impact outside. 

	The problem of the computer system involved some diplomats here. One of the countries which contributed to buy the computer and to produce the system was Italy. Italy, as a country-the ambassador of Italy at the time played an important role in convincing RENAMO that we knew the process, we knew the equipment, we knew the system: Don't worry about the computer process. It is clear. We had people-because we received some technical support from Italy and they put some people working with us on the process of computers and to work with the computers-they could see, because at that time we didn't have a lot of Mozambiquan people working with computers. There were a few people there which we put there, but the majority was foreign people, which you'd see from the ONUMOZ and from Italy particularly.

MAWSON:	So I just wanted to ask, related to this then, and I think in a way I already know the answer-but maybe you could talk about it a little bit: how did you view the character of the CNE at that time? Was it purely a sort of technical body to just organize the elections, or did it take a more activist role to bring the two sides together?

VALIGY:	More activist role.

MAWSON:	More activist.

VALIGY:	Yes, not as a body to take decisions, but it was a body which was involved deeply in all of the process in terms of, is it crucial? With STAE, but not only to stay in the headquarters to discuss and to make a consensus and to give that decision to STAE to implement, no. It was part of the implementation, it was deeply involved in that. 

MAWSON:	Earlier on, you were saying that you didn't want to publicize all the internal discussions. But obviously, transparency is very important for an election process, and especially one after a civil war. So could you tell me a little bit more about how you did keep the public informed?

VALIGY:	The problem is, at that time it was not good after our debate to go outside and to inform that we don't agree on that, we agree on that. Because the people are not confident in that part-with the real stability of the country, the real ceasefire, if it will go ahead or not. Because at that time a lot of expansion-all African countries including Angola, where the election was held in '92; after that, no more than six months, the war came again. At that time it was important to transmit confidence for the people, because they will see that here, those guys were working in order to go ahead with all of the process. 

	It is the reason why no one inside the National Electoral Commission could give interviews to the media, only our spokesman.    

MAWSON:	Was that part of the electoral law, or was that just a decision-? 

VALIGY:	No, we decided inside. It was something which we decided inside. This was meant to transmit some confidence to all of the people. Sometimes the president gave some interview just to transmit, OK, or conduct the process, because the step now was that-we were moving to that step, and something like that. Just to see that we were working, we were working in order to achieve the final result which would be after the election.  

MAWSON:	So you decided right at the beginning when the CNE was first formed-.

VALIGY:	Yes. 

MAWSON:	Was it one person's suggestion, or it just came up for everybody?

VALIGY:	It was suggested. The first, during the-I don't know for how long, maybe three months, four months of the National Election Commission. I was elected the spokesman, and then we saw that it was not good for us as a representative of government to be the spokesman. Maybe it would be better to choose someone who is not indicated by government or RENAMO. We decided to have a religious person, a padre. He was the spokesman until they handed off the process. Because he didn't represent the big majority force inside the national-. It is some kind like Mazula is apparently independent. The power of those three guys is small.      

MAWSON:	Limited.

VALIGY:	They play an important role, because they went there with another mentality. They didn't participate in the war. They came from the independent political party. They had another vision of the process. What they did was important because they defended what they were convinced was better for the country. They played an important role. There were only three, but those three people played an important role. 

MAWSON:	So I was going to ask you, did you have many relations with traditional leaders and religious leaders to inspire confidence in the people about the electoral process? Did you use any of the-? 

VALIGY:	Yes we did, we involved religion. We involved traditional leaders during the civic education process, because they have an important leadership in this place, and they can promote-not only them, but also civil organizations like women's, young people's, and groups of workers, and something like that. All of the civic organizations that existed at that time, they could receive some support from the STAE and National Electoral Commission to disseminate the civic education, seeking for election. 

	Other international organizations could participate in that: the Carter Center, NDI [National Democratic Institute], the Republican Institute also, Commonwealth, African Union, European Union. But what we decided is, we only have one kind, one model of official material for civic education-not to try and use the civic education as a way to campaign. The material for civic education was prepared by STAE and submitted to the National Election Commission. We saw the material, and we authorized to work with those materials. What we did sometimes was to produce more examples, because maybe the number which we produced was not enough. We authorized, OK, another organization which was trying to help us can reproduce more copies in order to allocate to the people in the country.       

MAWSON:	Going back to the composition, the structure in '94: I was a bit interested since I got in Mozambique to understand, OK, the structure in '94 was the necessary solution. But since '94 maybe it hasn't been the best way to organize the elections, to have the FRELIMO and RENAMO representatives on the CNE. As you said there have been some changes in the electoral law to change that. 

VALIGY:	They still have people representing FRELIMO and RENAMO according to the number of the seats in the parliament, some proportional people there. But the majority, as I said, is people coming from the civic society. They are there, including the president. Mainly the president. In the last three elections, yes, the last three elections the president came from the civil society, not from the government or from any other political representative. 

MAWSON:	So do you think the tendency or the trajectory of the CNE now is moved away from the political representatives? Do you think it will eventually get to the point where it is-?

VALIGY:	Not yet. Because remains the problem of the lack of confidence.

MAWSON:	Still.

VALIGY:	Among political parties, when they look for FRELIMO-they look for the judicial, for example. For them, all of those members of the judicial are coming from FRELIMO. They are the men of FRELIMO. They have some compromise with FRELIMO. They don't have-they don't work independently, is the point of view of the opposition parties here. It is the reason why, until we get confidence, until we agree that this judge is a judge who will follow the rule, we must take into account those kinds of lack of confidence. 

MAWSON:	So you think it is important to still have the political representatives for that reason, to build confidence?

VALIGY:	I think not really-but maybe to move, to reduce gradually those kinds of representation, to get inside people who have a technical background to be part of that body. I think it will be better, but it will take some time.

MAWSON:	I know for the STAE, for the last elections-I was speaking to the director-general of the STAE, Felisberto Naife, last week, and he was telling me now the STAE-   

VALIGY:	Carrasco.

MAWSON:	No, no, the current director-general. He was saying that for the last elections, 2009, that there are no longer political representatives on STAE, now it is just a technical body. 

VALIGY:	Yes, but the problem remains the same. The open vacancies.

MAWSON:	Yes, the recruitment.

VALIGY:	And the people trying to send CVs and so on, including the director, they include the director. He was trying to get the vacancy, and he won at that time. But for the opposition, the process is not transparent. They said all the time that FELIMO was trying every time to drive those processes fraudulently. They don't have-I don't know if it is still a lack of confidence, or justification for the lack of capacity to them as a political party, to work in order to win the election. They try to justify those, their fragility, saying that the people of STAE are putting them by the government.  

MAWSON:	So do you think-I've heard two different things. I've heard the structure of the CNE in '94, the way that it was composed-

VALIGY:	Yes, but it's-

MAWSON:	That was necessary at that time. Other people have said to me that since then it has caused problems, always having these political representatives on the CNE. What I'm hearing from you, it seems like it has caused problems, but still there wasn't really another way to do it; you still needed to have the political representatives in order to keep RENAMO on board with the process.

VALIGY:	If you look at all of the process including '94, RENAMO was there with seven people, but they participated in all of the decisions. If you look at STAE at that time, RENAMO was there, the deputy director and the head of one of the departments a member of RENAMO and so on. It was not-the head was a deputy of each directorate or each department. 

MAWSON:	At the provincial level and district level?

VALIGY:	Until the basic level, but they didn't agree easily with the results of the process. It still would be the same in '99, it was the same with members of RENAMO in the board bodies, they didn't agree. Until now, they're still having people indicate from the parliamentary and from government, but they still do not accept the result of the election. 

	I think that it is a way they're taking to justify the results which they didn't achieve. But you must keep running for the technical body which has background, technical background in law, etc., which can stay there to abide the law and to implement what we are doing. I opened the process for observers, for other people, just to make the process transparent. I think it is better to move on that process. Now, after that election in '94-sorry, in 2004-we received recommendations from the groups of international observers, including the Conseil Constitutionnel [Constitutional Council of France], to change some contents of the law.

MAWSON:	In '94?

VALIGY:	No, in 2004. Then we did, the government did, the parliament made some changes. But now we still have some problems in the law. The law was approved by consensus in the parliament: that law, which conducted that election, the 2009 election. But there are some technical aspects which must be corrected in terms of timing; in order to have time for all of the process, the chronogram of the process must be-. I don't know what kind of discussion there will be in the parliament, but the situation is the same because the majority of the seats are with FRELIMO, and the seats of RENAMO with the MDM [Mozambique Democratic Movement] is so small, they can't put any kind of barrier for the law which can be approved. 

	Now it is the position of FRELIMO where they have a majority there, but they are saying that they will work with the intention to create a law which can be better than that one, not to take advantage of the majority of seats which they have in the parliament, just wait and see. But we have a lot of recommendations from the European Union, from the national observers here, from Conseil Constitutionnel also, which is a lot of material they can take in order to look for some aspects of the electoral law. 

MAWSON:	From your perspective, do you think FRELIMO, the FRELIMO party, are more willing to make it a more, as you say, technical body and less political involvement?

VALIGY:	Yes, they're trying to do that, it's a lot of time. In order to have consensus in those kinds of decisions they accept to stay with the representative of-because I remember, including '94, the draft of the electoral law which we did in '91, I think, was that the members of National Election Commission will be judges chosen by the magistrate. Not any other improvements, not the president, not the government, no political party, but they didn't accept-clearly they didn't accept, and moved for that kind of political representation at that time. But we stayed with that situation, that lack of confidence.

	I don't know why, in fact-the reason that I told you, it is a way to justify their failure in the process.  

MAWSON:	I've heard from many people that RENAMO is not a mature political organization; it is not a mature political party, and they don't have such a-. 

VALIGY:	Democracy, internal democracy. You know, if you see RENAMO lost a lot of good people who were part of RENAMO in the beginning, they're still losing people. Raul Domingos was one of the negotiators, head of the negotiations for the peace. Afterwards Dhlakama-my point of view-heard that he can replace him, he was trying to put him out. Until now that guy, Daviz Simango, was a member of RENAMO-he won the local election in Balama-had a representative of RENAMO and the international community, and some people look to him as a young person who can go ahead, and maybe they look to him as the best person to take the leadership of RENAMO. 

	After Dhlakama heard that, he replaced him as a candidate for RENAMO in Balama. It is the reason why some people, independent people, made a small organization to put Daviz Simango as a candidate, and he won again. Now he created a party, and it is one of the parties that has some sympathy for some people around-including what he is doing is very important.   

	Last week you could hear that President [Armando Emilio] Guebuza invited the two leaders of the opposition to have a dinner in the palace of the president. What we could say at the time, that young people-he accepted and he was at the dinner with the president, but Dhlakama didn't accept, and was this kind of personality which instead of being good for him reduced his sympathy from the general people. But the attitude of Daviz Simango is better, because he is getting more sympathy because he is taking a civil approach to performance. It is contrary to Dhlakama. He was invited for dinner; he was not there, he didn't participate.      

MAWSON:	Dhlakama was not- 

VALIGY:	Did not participate. He was invited to be a part of the-what is the name in English, it is a body which the President has, to exchange ideas for the decision, including the leader of the major party, the major opposition party.

MAWSON:	This is the State Council?

VALIGY:	Yes, the State Council. But Dhlakama refused to participate. He was afraid, he sat there but he didn't accept to participate. Instead to grow up as a political personality he reduced his sympathy from the people, and the result of the election is that. What he did you can see.

MAWSON:	I don't want to take up too much more of your evening, so I was just maybe going to close with a few final questions. The first question is: what would you say if there was another election administrator from another country here who was trying to learn from the experience of Mozambique in 1994? What would you tell them about the experience on the CNE? Are there any things that you think are applicable in other countries, maybe lessons to be learned?

VALIGY:	There are some lessons to be learned. The most important is they must decide according to the real situation, not to take completely the Mozambican experience and to calculate for themselves. They must discuss how to change the situation of the countries and to exchange, to accommodate all the interests, to solve the main problem if they have contradiction in their fragile country, if they came from the war conflict or internal civil war, something like that. They must have dialogue until they end the process. It is the same reason why we are saying for the situation in Zimbabwe, for instance: they must keep the dialogue underway. If you see the situation two, three years ago and now in Zimbabwe, they increased the dialogue, and the situation is better than two years ago.

	If you see the situation in Madagascar, they achieved a consensus to create transitional government, but [Andry] Rajoelina by himself decided not to agree on that, because he has the support of militias, maybe, but it is not a solution. He is disliked by the international community; he is disliked by SADC [Southern African Development Community], by the European Union, and so on. They must lose something in order to gain something. If you see the situation in Madagascar, other candidates for president are old people, all of them. Rajoelina is the one who is young; he is 34 years only. He has a lot of time, more than 30 years in front of him to be the president. It is good, because in that situation they can create a war situation, civil war, because there are a lot of people who support other people and something like that. They must have some capacity to hear the opposite party, and to see how they can together find the solution, not to deculcate any kind-but taking account, because in Mozambique the process was the negotiation process, the capacity of the Mozambican people. 

	First of all, there is sort of a peaceful process in Mozambique-the capacity and the wish of the Mozambican people to finish the war. The second was the role played by the political parties, both RENAMO and the government of FRELIMO, to discuss and stay discussing, to stay, give some position to have another one as the result of negotiating. They both will win if they can sustain a discussion. The influence for the result of the peace in the agreement was played by the international community, both the bilateral part and including the international organizations like the United Nations, European Union, and so on. I think that these are three reasons how we can achieve the peaceful-. But without the wish of the people, without the wish of the political parties and the role of the international community, it is not possible, it was not possible to achieve a peaceful situation in Mozambique.      

MAWSON:	My last question, absolutely the last one: with the benefit that you have now of 15 years, if you look back to '94, is there anything you would have done differently?

VALIGY:	No.

MAWSON:	No?

VALIGY:	No, I think what we did at that time was what was better to solve that problem at that time. I think maybe to have more support, financial support to make the demobilization process better, to give jobs for those people. If you look, the RENAMO guerillas, they started as guerillas at eight years. No schools, no other professional experience, and at the end of the war they were around 20, 25 years, 23 years, no more than 27 years. What those people will do without an army? Nothing. They don't know to do anything. It is much better for them to have a pistol and to make an assault and to do something like that. It is much easier for them. Instead, to go to the agriculture, to try to put the seed there until the seed provides some food, it takes no less than eight months. It is too much. How can they drive during that time. I think that next time the demobilization process must be taken carefully. If they do that it is very important. 

	Trying to see what we can give in terms of more confidence and more transparency process.

MAWSON:	Thank you very much, I appreciate your time. 

Innovations for Successful Societies				Series: 	Elections 
Oral History Program						Interview number:  N-10
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Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties