Mozambique Elections: Mobile phones, cameras to be prohibited in polling booths

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique Elections: Mobile phones, cameras to be prohibited in polling booths

10:33 CAT | 30 Sep 2024

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

Mozambique’s Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE) has banned the use of mobile phones and cameras in polling booths for the general elections on 9 October.

According to a written instruction from the entity, the decision was taken to ban the use of mobile phones and cameras in the booths, as well as the “carrying of wallets, backpacks and other similar objects, during electoral operations, by the seven members of the polling station.” Another article outlines the prohibition “for all citizens” of the “use of mobile phones, cameras, carrying wallets, backpacks and other similar objects in the booths.

“The use of mobile phones must take place outside the room where the polling station has been set up and is operating, so as not to disturb the normal course of electoral operations,” reads the document, dated 26 September, which stresses tht only the use of mobile phones by the presiding officer of the polling station is allowed “whenever there is a need to establish contact” with the STAE.

The instruction aims to put into practice a decision by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) on “restricting the use of telephones and prohibiting the carrying of wallets, backpacks and other similar objects during electoral operations” at polling stations.

Mozambique is on 9 October holding its seventh presidential elections, in which the current head of state, Filipe Nyusi, who has reached the constitutional limit of two terms, is not standing. At the same time the seventh legislative elections will be taking place, as well as the fourth set of elections for provincial assemblies and governors.

More than 17 million voters are registered to vote, including 333,839 registered abroad, according to data from the CNE.

Standing for president this time are Daniel Chapo, backed by the govenring Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), Ossufo Momade, backed by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the largest opposition party, Lutero Simango, backed by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the third most represented party in parliament, and Venâncio Mondlane, a member of parliament formerly of Renamo member, who is backed by the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), a movement without seats in parliament.

Source: Lusa