CIP Mozambique Elections: CNE admits ballot counting irregularities
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The Political Commission of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party has declared that Frelimo candidates in the municipal elections scheduled for 10 October, must be acceptable to local members of the party.
In what is clearly a warning that the provincial leaderships of the party must not impose candidates, the Political Commission, after a meeting on Monday chaired by President Filipe Nyusi, issued a release saying it had “discussed in depth the profile of candidates for the municipal elections, and it was consensual that the internal choice of candidates should take into account, in addition to their honesty and integrity, their acceptability to the grass roots membership of the party”.
The Political Commission also urged all those citizens of voting age in the municipalities who have not yet registered as voters to do so, “since it is only with regularisation of this procedure that we can elected the right leaders for the municipal leaderships”.
The Commission urged the electoral bodies to make every effort to overcome the difficulties encountered during the registration, so that the targets can be reached.
Voter registration began on 19 March and is scheduled to end on 19 May. The target is to register slightly more than eight million voters in all the districts that contain municipalities. But as of 23 April, only 49 per cent of the target figure had registered, and there were serious fears that the target would not be met.
Frelimo has already denied claims that it has candidates lined up for the position of mayor in the 53 municipalities. The official Frelimo position is that no candidates will be announced until after the Mozambican Constitution is amended to include the proposals on decentralisation agreed between Nyusi and the leader of the Renamo rebels, Afonso Dhlakama.
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