Observers confirm delays in opening Nampula polling stations – AIM report

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Observers confirm delays in opening Nampula polling stations – AIM report

7:15 CAT | 24 Jan 2018

O País

Mozambican election observers have confirmed that most polling stations for Wednesday’s mayoral by-election in the northern city of Nampula did not open on time at 07.00.

The Civil Society Joint Observation Platform (known as the “Peace Room”), in its first report, said there was a general delay in opening the polling stations. Some did not open until 09.00 – and the six polling stations at the Pedreira primary school were not open by 09.20 (although the observers also gave examples of four polling areas, containing 47 of the 401 stations, which did open at 07.00 sharp).

In principle, the polling station staff should have been present by 05.00, with all the ballot boxes, polling booths and other material, to set up the stations so that voting could start at 07.00. But in some cases, the staff found that the kits they had been given by the Nampula branch of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) were incomplete. The material was still being distributed after 09.00.

A electricidade de #Moçambique havia prometido energia, pelos vistos nem com a presença do PCA… falta de luz na EPC de Namicopo #Intercalar #Nampula pic.twitter.com/IxYomz4Yem

— Verdade Democracia (@DemocraciaMZ) January 24, 2018

The most serious problem was that some kits did not include the electoral register – the list of names of voters registered at that station. Without the register, voting is impossible. The voters reported that by 09.30, six of the 11 polling stations at the Napipine primary school were still without registers. In at least two cases, the registers at the stations were not the same as those that had been distributed beforehand to the political parties.

In one serious violation, staff at a polling station in the Numuatho B primary school allowed five people to vote although their names were not on the register, and they presented no form of identification. In a second incident, at a polling station in the Muatala primary school, five members of the riot police were allowed to vote, although they presented no voter cards or other identification documents.

This abuse should have been detected and stopped by the polling station staff appointed by the competing political parties. Each polling station has seven members of staff – four appointed by STAE and one each by the ruling Frelimo Party, the rebel movement Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM). The opposition party polling station monitors should also have protested.

The observers noted illicit campaigning by both Frelimo and the MDM inside the polling areas.

A senior member of the MDM (not named by the observers) was found campaigning for the MDM candidate at the polling area in the Mamparra primary school. He was denounced by voters in the queue and polling station staff asked him to leave.

At the Numuatho B polling area, Frelimo propaganda was on display – including clothing with Frelimo symbols and motorcycles carrying the portrait of Frelimo candidate Amisse Cololo. The law forbids all party political propaganda from the vicinity of the polling stations, and on Tuesday the chairperson of the National Elections Commission (CNE), Abdul Carimo, had warned voters not to wear clothing with party symbols.

Asked by AIM about the late opening of the polling stations, the general director of STAE, Felisberto Naife, said that in distributing voting material, priority was given on Tuesday to the outlying parts of the city. Nampula sprawls over a large area, and some neighbourhoods are 15 kilometres or more from the centre of the city.

STAE only started distributing the materials to the central polling stations at night – and then it rained torrentially. Naife said this forced STAE to halt the distribution, since open trucks were being used, and STAE did not want the material to become soaked.

But the rain stopped before midnight. Even so, Naife said this did not give STAE enough time to transport all the materials and polling station staff to the polling areas in time for a prompt start at 07.00

He admitted that the failure to provide electoral registers on time was a serious shortcoming – but told AIM that it was rectified and by 10.00 all 401 polling stations were fully operational.

He was surprised to hear of the cases where people had voted without any identification, and promised to investigate. He pointed out that these abuses happened under the noses of the political party polling station monitors and the political party representatives on the polling station staff.

A Escola Primaria Completa Cerâmica esta enfretando o mesmo problema! #Nampula #NampulaDecide https://t.co/PxiAGIXnWY

— Alexandre Zerinho (@AllexandreMZ) January 24, 2018