Mozambique Elections: 2024 draft state budget projects cost of next year’s general elections at €96.3M

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Mozambique Elections: 2024 draft state budget projects cost of next year’s general elections at €96.3M

12:12 CAT | 26 Oct 2023

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

Next year’s general elections in Mozambique will cost the state coffers around 6.5 billion meticais (€96.3 million), according to the government’s draft state budget for 2024.

“Among various expenses, it will be used for voter registration, the production of voting material, the purchase and rental of rolling stock [vehicles], and the payment of subsidies,” read supporting documents of the proposal for the Economic and Social Plan and State Budget (PESOE) for 2024, which Lusa consulted on Thursday.

“General elections. which are a vital element in consolidating the gains of the democratic process in Mozambique, are planned for 2024,” the government’s document emphasises.

READ: Mozambique: Local Elections will cost 9.7 billion meticais – Miramar

Mozambique: Sharp increase in election costs

On 7 August, the president of Mozambique, Filipe Nyusi, called the next general elections, including the seventh presidential elections, for 9 October 2024, his office announced.

The next presidential, legislative, provincial assembly and provincial governor elections will thus be held “simultaneously throughout the national territory of the Republic of Mozambique and on a single day, 9 October 2024,” the office of the president said at the time, adding that he had also called for voting abroad in the presidential and legislative elections to be held on the same day.

The date for the elections was set following a proposal by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) and after “consulting the Council of State.”

Nyusi, who is also leader of the governing Frelimo party, has been president of Mozambique since 15 January 2015, having been re-elected for the second and final constitutionally prescribed term five years later.

Mozambique entered a new electoral cycle this year, with local elections held on 11 October in 65 municipalities – the results of which should be announced today by the National Election Commission (CNE), in a process that has been heavily criticised by observers, civil society and opposition parties with repeated accusations of electoral fraud – and general elections in 2024, which in this case should include district elections.

However, through a one-off revision to the country’s constitution, promulgated in August by the president, the district elections provided for in the peace agreements with the largest opposition party, Renamo, have been postponed until “the conditions are created for them to be held”, with Frelimo – which has a majority in parliament – citing the financial costs of such an election.

Source: Lusa