Mozambique Elections: Renamo candidate “ready for everything” - AIM
Junta registration post, Maputo, May 3. File photo: Sala da Paz
Almost 30 per cent of Mozambique’s estimated potential new voters had registered by 1 May, according to the latest figures issued by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE).
STAE put the total number registered as of 1 May at 2,136,637. Since the target figure is 7,341,735 and the voter registration began on 15 April, the daily average of new voters registered is 125,684. At this pace, by the end of registration, on 30 May, only 5.66 million new voters will have registered.
STAE’s estimate of the total potential electorate is 14.17 million. Of these, about 6.8 million registered last year, in the run-up to the 2018 municipal elections. Anyone who registered in 2018, in the districts that contain municipalities, does not need to register again his year. But all previous voter cards, such as those issued for the 2014 general elections, are now invalid.
The province with best registration so far is Manica, where 42.04 per cent of the target have registered.
It is followed by Gaza, where 39.39 per cent have registered. At first sight, this is a very strange figure indeed, since the previous STAE count, covering the first two weeks of the registration (15-28 April) put Gaza on only 17.52 per cent. Thus Gaza seems to have doubled its registration figure in just three days (29 April to 1 May).
In absolute terms, the Gaza registration leapt from 100,750 on 28 April to 226,541 on 1 May. So did 125,791 voters registered in those three days, an average of 41,930 a day?
According to STAE spokesperson Claudia Langa, speaking to AIM on Monday, in fact most of these new Gaza voters were registered earlier, but the registration brigades delayed in sending the full figures to the central STAE offices.
Throughout the country, Langa said, STAE faces difficulties in obtaining complete figures from all the 5,096 registration brigades, because of difficulties, partly of communication and partly of access.
This explains, he said, not only the sudden jump in registration in Gaza, but also the low registration figures from the two most populous provinces, Nampula and Zambezia. “Many of the brigades have been unable to report their figures”, he said.
The third highest registration figure comes from the northern province of Cabo Delgado with 38.57 per cent of its target. But the Cabo Delgado registration is now in deep trouble, partly due to terrorist attacks in the north of the province, and partly to the aftermath of cyclone Kenneth, which hit the Cabo Delgado coast on 25 April.
According to a report in the latest issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin” (published by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity, CIP), registration has been completely stopped in many districts of Cabo Delgado for the past week, including Ibo, Quissanga, Macomia, Mocímboa da Praia, Muidumbe, Palma, Mecufi, and Metuge as well as parts of Pemba.
The bulletin notes that, in the first week of registration Cabo Delgado registered 20,346 people per day; in week two it was 11,566; and in the first three days of last week it was down to 8,359 per day. STAE aims to register 640,000 people in Cabo Delgado, but 200,000 are directly affected by the cyclone and floods, according to the country’s relief agency, National Disaster Management Institute (INGC). Of these, about 20,000 are in 8 accommodation centres set up in nine districts and the city of Pemba.
The province with the poorest voter registration is Sofala, where only 20.83 per cent of the target had registered by 1 May. Sofala is still reeling from the aftermath of the earlier disaster, cyclone Idai, which hit the province on 14 March.
Also lagging badly is Maputo City which has only achieved 22.27 per cent of its target. Most of the city’s electorate registered last year for the municipal elections, but there are still an estimated 120,655 Maputo residents who reach the voting age of 18 this year or who, for whatever reason, failed to register last year.
he picture, as of 1 May, for all the provinces, from north to south, is as follows:
Niassa: 27 per cent
Cabo Delgado: 38.57 per cent
Nampula: 25.93 per cent
Zambezia: 22.87 per cent
Tete: 28.62 per cent
Manica: 42.04 per cent
Sofala: 20.83 per cent
Inhambane: 34.76 per cent
Gaza: 38.39 per cent
Maputo province: 25.69 per cent
Maputo City: 22.27 per cent
Total: 29.1 per cent
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