Nampula vote tomorrow: Election bodies predict large turnout

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Nampula vote tomorrow: Election bodies predict large turnout

12:30 CAT | 23 Jan 2018

Notícias

Mozambique’s electoral bodies foresee a large turnout in tomorrow’s by election to elect the president of the municipal council in Nampula.

The provincial director of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration, Príncipe Lino Uataia, told Notícias that this belief was based on the civic education work carried out by the electoral bodies recently.

According to Uataia, the expectation was to correct the more than 50 percent levels of abstention in the 2014 elections in the city.

Data from the General Population and Housing Census of 2017 indicate that the city of Nampula has a population of 743,125, and a total of 296,000 voters are registered on STAE’s books.

Uataia said civic education of the electorate had been successful and would produce the desired effects.

After the civic education campaign, the electoral rolls were made available for 10 days in order to allow voters to have the opportunity to check the authenticity of their names in a process that, according to the provincial director of the STAE in Nampula, attracted a daily average of 80 voters.

Also Read: Special holiday in Nampula for vote on Wednesday

He pointed out that this indicated that many citizens did not have a 2013 voter card, or were unaware that any other valid document could be used at the polling place.

Uataia however says that all material and logistical conditions are in place to allowing voting to take place from the early hours of the morning on. By the end of yesterday, polling stations supervisors had signed their contracts with the STAE.

The placing of the voting material in the 54 polling stations starts today, with priority for those within a 15-kilometre radius from the city and in areas considered difficult to access.
The electoral bodies in Nampula had by yesterday accredited 1,100 national and close to 50 foreigner observers, among them Europeans, Americans and representatives of regional and continental organisations.

Just yesterday, the Nampula Provincial Elections Commission issued a statement reminding observers, political parties, the media, voters and all concerned about some key aspects of Mozambican electoral law. They pointed out that polling station staff consists of seven members: one president, one vice-president, one secretary and four scrutineers, three of whom come from political parties with parliamentary seats.

Each political party, coalition of political parties or a group of citizen electors has the right to designate, from among the voters, one effective and one alternate delegate for each polling station table. Citizens who are not voters are not allowed to sit at the polling station table nor citizens who have voted at that polling station table.

The Provincial Elections Commission urged all those involved to leave the polling stations after exercising their right to vote and go home again.

Source: Notícias