Mozambique: Parties begin to register for Municipal Elections

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Mozambique: Parties begin to register for Municipal Elections

7:44 CAT | 03 Jul 2023

Photo: CNE / Facebook

Political parties have begun to register with Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) to participate in the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October.

Registration began last Monday, and will continue until 14 July. So far none of the major parties have registered. Just three minor parties have presented their papers to the CNE.

They are the Ecology Party, the Electoral Union (UE) and the Reconciliation Movement of Mozambique (MRM). The MRM is completely unheard of, and does not even have a website.

The Ecology Party does have a website, on which it claims it was set up in 2001 as a breakaway from the Mozambican Green Party. It claims to be a member of the Green Group Africa Federation.

The Electoral Union is deeply obscure. It has no party office, no website and no other form of publication. The UE and the Ecology Party have taken part in previous elections with a complete lack of success. Neither of them have any seats in municipal assemblies, or in provincial assemblies, let alone in the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

Among the documentation that each competing party must submit to the CNE are copies of its Statutes and symbol, the certificate proving that it is duly registered, a list of members of the party leadership, and the identification of the party’s election agent.

The election agent must present a certified copy of his identity card, his criminal record certificate, and the party decision that appointed him the agent.

Once it has received these documents, the CNE must, within 24 hours, analyse the legality of the party name and symbol, checking whether the name is similar to that of other parties. If the CNE rejects any name or symbol, the party concerned may appeal to the Constitutional Council, the country’s highest body in matters of constitutional or electoral law.

The names of candidates for membership of the municipal assemblies are not submitted at this stage, but only after the CNE has approved or disqualified their political parties.

Independent citizens’ groups may also stand in the municipal elections – they must submit their papers, not to the CNE, but to the Provincial Elections Commissions.

Source: AIM