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Photo: Ikweli
The constant breakdown of the computer equipment used in voter registration – which ends in two days – is considered one of the main reasons why demoralised voters gave up heading to the voter registration posts.
Nampula province, Mozambique’s largest electoral constituency, may lose seats in the Assembly of the Republic if the voter registration process there is not extended.
Ikweli’s reporting team and its electoral correspondents devoted the last two weeks to a computer-related observation, and the conclusion could not be worse. “Mobile registration equipment and the lack of computer skills on the part of the ‘brigadists’ is driving away potential voters.”
In the district of Larde, for example, our correspondent found that several posts located in the village headquarters did not work. By all accounts, operational days did not account for even half the days of the supposed process, because electricity was lacking, mobile phones broke down or there was no toner to print voter cards.
“It sounds like a lie, but here in Larde, it is almost impossible to register,” one potential voter told our correspondent, adding that “in Evati, people would just sit and watch the brigade, and later gave up trying to go and register”.
In Mogincual, an STAE source who asked to remain anonymous said that “every day we get problems from the voter registration posts. There are some which have not even worked for ten full days, because they have always reported to us that the mobiles do not work, or there is no electricity, or else there is no ink in the printers”.
The same scenario is repeated in all the districts of Nampula, as evidenced by our correspondent’s report from the administrative post of Mirrote, in Erati.
“Here in Mirrote, voter registration is going very badly. The ‘brigadistas’ only go to the posts to sleep. They have never been able to work as they should – it seems that this year there will be no elections,” Mario Cardoso told our correspondent, adding that “the other problem is the Frelimo secretaries who are hunting people here. They are asking people for voter cards”.
Post number 277 in Liupo district was out of ink until late afternoon yesterday, despite the situation being reported to the local STAE director.
The post installed in the Complete Primary School 25 de Setembro in Nacala-Porto was withdrawn because of the weak turnout, itself the result of voter registration equipment never working properly. The district STAE director decided unilaterally to move the team to the São Vicente de Paula High School.
At one post located 49 kilometres away from the village of Nametil in the district of Mogovolas, the state of the roads causes mobile equipment stationed at a local school to remain unattended to despite a lengthy breakdown.
In Mecúburi, too, there are reports of mobile equipment breaking down, as our correspondent observed in the Chico area, where there has been no voter registration for a number of days.
The EPC post in Pedreira Nampula municipality has not worked for four weeks. As with others, it lacks toner for the printing of voter cards. In Iuluti, Mogovolas, more than half a million voter cards failed to be printed because of a lack of the necessary materials.
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