Mozambique Elections: EU to send observers to October elections

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Mozambique Elections: EU to send observers to October elections

1:28 CAT | 29 Feb 2024

The announcement was made by Ambassador Delphine Pronk after a meeting with Mozambican Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Verónica Macamo, who invited the EU electoral observation mission. [Photo: @MaggioreEU/X]

The European Union (EU) will have observers at the Mozambican general elections in October this year, the president of the EU Political and Security Committee announced yesterday in Maputo.

The announcement was made by Ambassador Delphine Pronk after a meeting with Mozambican Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Verónica Macamo, who invited the EU electoral observation mission.

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“The Government requested our EU observation mission during the October elections. And I would also like to salute Mozambican resilience and strength, the strength of democracy, the strength of institutions,” acknowledged Delphine Pronk, who is visiting Maputo, recalling the European Union’s financial support for cooperation programs with Mozambique.

Mozambique will hold general elections on October 9th this year, including presidential ones, in which the current head of state and leader of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo, in power), Filipe Nyusi, can no longer compete, as he has reached the constitutional limit of two terms.

Questioned by Lusa, the president of the EU Political and Security Committee did not say what type of observation mission will attend these general elections, nor how many members the mission will have: “I still don’t know. So we have to evaluate, we will send experts to Mozambique first, very soon. And then we will also evaluate based on who needs it and what they ask for, and what we can deliver.”

“But I think the importance of electoral observation is recognized by both sides,” Pronk acknowledged.

This year’s general elections in Mozambique, which follow the troubled municipal electoral process of October 2023, whose results were strongly contested by opposition parties and civil society organizations, will cost almost 20 billion meticais (€289 million), the National Elections Commission (CNE) announced this month.

“The updated budget to support the expenses of holding the seventh general, presidential and legislative elections and the fourth for the members of the provincial assemblies and the governor of the province, scheduled for October 9th of this year, is 19,993,186,146 meticais,” the CNE statement reads.

Of this amount, more than 6.5 billion meticais (€95 million) are already available, he added.

The vote on October 9th, which includes presidential, legislative, Provincial Assemblies and provincial governor elections, will take place simultaneously, on a single day, across the entire national territory of the Republic of Mozambique.

The CNE said that preparations are currently underway for the voter registration, which will take place between March 15th and April 28th in Mozambique and between March 30th and April 28th abroad.

The electoral body expects to register more than seven million people this year, in a process that will include the creation of 9,165 registration posts and 6,330 brigades, with the distribution of part of the material for the process already underway.

“Preparatory activities for voter registration are underway, with a projection of the number of voters expected, that is, including those who registered when the local elections were held on October 11, 2023, of 16,497,501 voters,” CNE spokesperson Paulo Cuinica has previously stated.

According to Cuinica, of the expected voters, 16,217,816 are in Mozambique and the remaining 279,685 abroad.

Moz🇲🇿 MFA Veronica Macamo meeting EU PSC delegation headed by @FienBZ, discussions focused on ways to further enhancing the good bilateral links and EU continued support to Mozambique efforts against terrorism in #CaboDelgado, including via the @EUTMMozambique mission.@EUinMoz pic.twitter.com/S5Qhi3TsiV

— Antonino Maggiore (@MaggioreEU) February 28, 2024