Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, has denounced a string of irregularities in the voter registration taking place ahead of the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October.
At a Saturday press conference in Maputo, the Deputy President of the National Elections Commission (CNE), Fernando Mazanga, who was appointed by Renamo, warned that the problems with registration meant that the environment for free, fair and transparent elections does not exist.
He said Renamo had followed the registration in the provinces and districts, and had noted its “poor quality”. He claimed that people “with obscure interests” are creating obstacles so that potential voters do not register.
Mazanga pointed out that the registration had been rehearsed in detail. Staff were trained, the computerized equipment was tested, and all seemed to be in order.
Pilot registration was held in nine districts in three provinces (Maputo, Manica and Nampula). “We were able to check that the machines were in good condition”, said Mazanga, “but when we began the registration proper, we noted elements that are contrary to our principles and initial findings”.
“We verified that the problem is not in the machines, but in human action”, said Mazanga.
In the central province of Zambezia, he added, registration was taking place outside the places approved by the CNE. He cited, in particular, the scandal in Gurue district, where some members of registration brigades took a printer to a warehouse, where they printed voter cards, in the middle of the night, without any authorization for this highly irregular move.
The CNE spokesperson, Paulo Cuinica, said he had no knowledge of violations of the election law in Zambezia, but a team from the CNE and its executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) have gone to the province to investigate.
There is no serious doubt about the clandestine printing of voter cards in Gurue. It was filmed and the video circulated widely on social media.
The excuse for the irregular printing was that, during the day, printers at Gurue registration posts broke down. So brigade members opted to take a printer to the warehouse, where they connected it to the registration computers, and printed the cards. This was supposedly so that voters who had registered during the day could pick up their cards the following morning.
Even if this explanation is true, it does not excuse the illegality of printing cards outside the registration posts, and hours after the posts had closed for the day.
Cuinica demonstrated how ill-informed he was by saying that the CNE/STAE investigating team had gone to Mocuba district, although the clandestine registration was reported from Gurue.
He promised that, after the investigations were complete, “we shall see what measures to adopt to ensure that this does not happen again”.
As for the frequent complaints that the registration is far too slow, Cuinica blamed this on brigade members still unsure how to handle he equipment.
“We know of cases of enormous queues”, he said. “People are still familiarizing themselves with the equipment. There are still some difficulties here and there. All these cases are being listed and are being corrected”.
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