Nampula by-election campaign begins – AIM report

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Nampula by-election campaign begins – AIM report

10:09 CAT | 10 Jan 2018

The candidates from left to right, top to bottom: Renamo's Paulo Vahanle; MDM's Carlos Saíde Chaúre; AMUSI's Mário Albino; Frelimo's Amisse Cololo and PAHUMO's Filomena Mutoropa. Composit photo by: Notícias

The official campaign for the mayoral by-election in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula begins on Tuesday, and the chairperson of the National Elections Commission (CNE), Abdul Carimo, has urged all candidates, political parties and their supporters to behave with tolerance.

Carimo on Monday stressed that candidates and parties should avoid disorder, violence and incitement to hatred. Instead, they should adopt “a posture and an attitude which seek to promote an environment of peace, harmony, joy and solidarity”, he said.

He warned that the electoral legislation forbids candidates from using state assets (such as vehicles) in their campaigns. They are also barred from using places of worship and from “turning children and youths into political instruments”.

There are five candidates. The party that won the 2013 municipal elections in Nampula, the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), is standing a 48 year old businessman, Carlos Saide. He was councillor for town planning under mayor Mahamudo Amurane, whose assassination on 4 October precipitated the by-election.

Despite the highly public dispute between Amurane and the MDM leadership prior to his murder, Saide, cited by the independent daily “O Pais”, declared “We have the duty to ensure continuity with the election manifesto that was being implemented by our colleague Mahamudo Amurane”.

The candidate for the ruling Frelimo Party, Amisse Cololo, is a 58 year old lecturer at the Catholic University of Mozambique. He has also served in the Nampula provincial government as Director of Labour, and has headed the secretariat of the Nampula Provincial Assembly.

Frelimo will be attempting to win back control of the city. Frelimo mayors always ran Nampula until defeat by the MDM in 2013.

The county’s main opposition party, the rebel movement Renamo, boycotted the 2013 municipal election. For the mayoral by-election, it is running Paulo Vahanle, who is a teacher, and a deputy in the national parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. If he wins, he will have to resign his parliamentary seat.

The tiny Humanitarian Party of Mozambique (PAHUMO) is running Filomena Mutoropa, who is the party’s sole member of the Nampula Municipal Assembly. This will be Mutoropa’s second attempt at becoming Mayor of Nampula. In the 2013 municipal elections, her name was accidentally left off the ballot paper, forcing a re-run of the election on 1 December that year. She won 4.15 per cent of the vote.

The fifth candidate, Mario Albino, is a longstanding feature of the Nampula political landscape. He was the MDM’s first Nampula provincial delegate in 2009, but he deserted the MDM and ran for mayor in 2013 as the candidate of the Civic Association for the Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources (ASSEMONA). He came last with just 548 votes (0.98 per cent). ASSEMONA seems to have disappeared and Albino now fronts a different organisation, the Action Party of the United Movement for Complete Salvation (AMUSI).

Even before the campaign has begun there have been clams of fraud. Renamo election agent Andre Magibire last week listed a series of alleged irregularities in the voter rolls that will be used in the polling stations.

Carimo on Monday announced that the voter rolls will be open for inspection by the Nampula public from 11 to 21 January (three days before the election). Citizens can check to see if their names are on the rolls, and which polling station they should vote at.

One problem is that here has been no additional voter registration ahead of the by-election. The voter rolls are thus the same as those used in Nampula for the October 2014 presidential and parliamentary elections. Nampula residents who have reached the age of 18 since 2014 will be unable to vote.

Source: AIM