Quarter Of Voter Registration Posts Have Problems

Maputo, 15 May (AIM) – About a quarter of Mozambique’s voter registration posts have problems and anomalies, according to the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP).

CIP bases this estimate on reports from a network of correspondents, scattered across the country, who are attempting to assess the registration in the country’s 65 municipalities, where local elections will be held on 11 October.

According to the latest issue of the CIP bulletin on the municipal elections, published on Sunday, in more than 10 per cent of the posts voter cards were not being printed, and in some cases they had not been printed for several days.

In some posts, notably in the central city of Beira, the observers from CIP were denied access. In some places, there are special, priority queues for teachers and other public employees, even though STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) has specifically banned this practice.

One illegality noted over the past week has been the storage overnight of the registration computers and printers in private homes. The equipment should be kept in STAE warehouses, or in the registration posts themselves under police equipment.

But in several instances, monitors from the opposition parties have found equipment stored in private houses, some of which are owned by neighbourhood secretaries or block chiefs. It is not yet clear whether the equipment was used for illicit nocturnal voter registration, away from the prying eyes of observers, journalists and opposition monitors.

Two such instances were discovered in the southern city of Matola, and an unspecified number of the registration computers were taken to the homes of locality chiefs, in the city of Chokwe in Gaza province.
(AIM)
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