Mozambique: CNE decides against extending voter registration – AIM

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Mozambique: CNE decides against extending voter registration – AIM

9:00 CAT | 02 Jun 2023

Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) on Thursday rejected calls by opposition parties to extend the voter registration period, which is due to end on Saturday.

The main opposition party, Renamo, had called for an extra 30 days of registration, while the MDM (Mozambique Democratic Movement) would have been content with 15 days. Both parties argued that large numbers of potential voters had not yet been registered, particularly in parts of central and northern Mozambique which they regard as opposition strongholds.

The CNE claimed it did not have enough money to go on registering voters beyond Saturday. All it could do to accommodate those who have not yet registered was extend the opening hours of the registration posts for the last two days.

Thus on Friday the posts, which should have opened at 07.00 will continue working until 22.00. On Saturday, the opening hours will be from 07.00 to zero hours on Sunday.

Reports from the largest municipalities in central and northern Mozambique (such as Beira, Quelimane, Nampula and Nacala) are that large crowds of citizens are continuing to cram into the registration posts, attempting to obtain the voter cards without which they will not be able to cast their votes in the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October.

A large number of anomalies have stained the voter registration. The computers (known as “Mobile IDs”) and printers used to produce the cards broke down repeatedly at the registration posts, and members of the registration brigades were so poorly trained that they took an unconscionably long time to process each voter. This was despite a pilot registration exercise in February.

The opposition suspects that many of these breakdowns were deliberate, intended to slow down registration in areas believed to favour opposition parties. It is certainly remarkable that registration appears to be around 100 per cent in Gaza province, a stronghold of the ruling Frelimo Party, while there are still lengthy queues in opposition-run cities such as Beira and Quelimane.

In its latest bulletin on the voter registration, the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), argued that voters believed to be from opposition areas were deliberately hindered from registering in the early weeks of the registration, and these blockages were organized by district directors of STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) and the registration post supervisors, many of whom are allegedly members of the Mozambican Youth Organisation (OJM), the youth wing of Frelimo.

In the case of Beira, the pro-Frelimo bias was so extreme that the CNE suspended the Beira STAE director, Nelson do Rosario. He had recruited the supervisors into a clandestine WhatsApp group which mobilized for Frelimo and against the opposition. The messages from this group leaked into the public domain, and they included calls to “liberate” Beira from opposition control.

Other illegalities detected included removing equipment from the registration posts in order to operate clandestine registration in STAE warehouses and even in private homes in the dead of night. Since this was done away from the prying eyes of journalists and political party monitors, it is not known how many people who have no right to vote in the municipal elections were registered in this way.

The root cause of the problems is the absurd system whereby the entire electorate must be registered every five years. The voter cards currently being issued will serve for this year’s municipal and next year’s general elections. Then they become invalid and are no use for anything.

A person who was 18 at the time of the first multi-party elections in 1994 has by now registered as a voter no less than six times. The voter card he now obtains will be his seventh.

This system was imposed by Renamo in the 1990s, on the grounds that only re-registration every election could prevent fraud by Frelimo. But, as Renamo is now discovering, the clumsy system of five yearly voter registration is wide open to fraud.

Source: AIM