Commission on District Elections: Govt extends 15-day deadline to 45

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Commission on District Elections: Govt extends 15-day deadline to 45

8:10 CAT | 19 Apr 2023

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: CIP]

The Council of Ministers has decided to extend from 15 to 45 days the mandate of the commission set up to analyse the feasibility of including district elections as part of Mozambique’s 2024 general elections, the government announced on Tuesday.

The decision was taken at the Council of Ministers meeting on Tuesday and follows criticism made after the commission was announced a week ago.

“The commission does not have the time or the legitimacy to fulfil the mandate for which it was created,” the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) said regarding the 15 days initially scheduled.

Additionally to concern regarding the day deadline, the CIP considers the commission “illegitimate” and merely artifice to postpone the new ballot, in which district administrators will be elected instead of appointed by the central government.

The “Commission to Reflect on the Viability of Holding District Elections in 2024” (CRED) will include members of the government and representatives of civil society, and its analysis is supposed to cover political, administrative, social and financial factors.

Its objective is to “evaluate the process of implementing decentralisation in the country, analysing the territorial coexistence and functional articulation between the provincial governance bodies, municipal bodies and the district decentralisation bodies”.

The commission is also mandated to advise the government on the position to be taken in relation to the deepening of decentralisation to district level in 2024.

Speaking to Lusa, the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), Mozambique’s main opposition party, and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third-largest party in parliament, demanded the scrapping of the commission.

The two opposition parties accuse the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo, the party in power) of orchestrating a “gradual coup” in order to delay scrutiny.

Source: Notícias