Constitutional Council validates Nampula election & calls 2nd round | Electoral crimes confirmed | Registration to cost $13.5 mn – Hanlon

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Constitutional Council validates Nampula election & calls 2nd round | Electoral crimes confirmed | Registration to cost $13.5 mn – Hanlon

8:05 CAT | 15 Feb 2018

Notícias

Without any of its usual criticism, the Constitutional Council (CC) Tuesday 13 February validated the Nampula by-election. It confirmed that a second round must be held by 15 March between the Frelimo and Renamo candidates, because no candidate received more than half the valid votes. It accepted the results numbers published by the CNE (see this newsletter, number 12), which gave Amisse Cololo, Frelimo, 44.51% and Paulo Vahanle, Renamo, 40.32%.

The CC confirmed that some polling stations opened late, but said this was for “justified reasons”. The CC also noted media reports of register books in the wrong polling stations and other “anomalies”, but accepted the CNE (National Elections Commission, Comissão Nacional de Eleições) affirmation that these problems were resolved. It noted that turnout was only 24.9% of registered voters. There were no formal protests. The CC ruling (in Portuguese) is posted on http://bit.ly/2F2SiPX

Electoral crimes confirmed

The public prosecutor (Ministério Público) confirmed that there were “verified” electoral criminal offences referred to it by the CNE, but it said that these did not influence the results which should therefore be accepted. No details of the crimes were given.

Registration to cost $13.5 mn.

The registration which runs from 1 March until 29 April will cost $13.5 million (MT 825 mn) and hopes to register 8.5 mn people. It is estimated that the voting age population is about 13.4 mn, but this registration will only be in the districts which contain the 53 municipalities where there will be elections next year. There will be a further registration next year covering the entire country.

There will be 3,234 registration posts staffed by 7,242 people; they will be open from 8.00 until 16.00 every day, including weekends and holidays.

Each register book can hold 800 voters, and when a book is full and new book is opened. At the time of the election, each polling station normally has just one register book (although it can have several smaller ones, so long as the total does not exceed 800 voters). Registration and voting must be in the same place, which is typically at a school, and each classroom will hold a polling station.

Source: 2018 Local Elections - Mozambique Political Process Bulletin