Maputo, 16 Apr (AIM) – The chairperson of Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE), Anglican bishop Carlos Matsinhe, announced on Tuesday in Maputo that between the start of voter registration on 15 March and 13 April, over five million potential voters have been registered.
The exact figure, Matsinhe announced at a meeting with representatives of political parties, is 5,304,110, which is 70.78% of the target figure of 7,494,011 voters forecast for the 2024 registration.
In addition, 8,723,805 voters were registered in 2023 in the districts containing municipalities.
This brings the total number of registered voters to 14,027,915, which is 86.5 per cent of the potential electorate of 16,217,816, estimated by the National Statistics Institute (INE). Since two days have passed since 13 April, added Matsinhe, the percentage of the target attained must now be well above 86.5 per cent.
“We have been following the work of the political parties in persuading potential voters to register”, he said. “We praise this effort and we encourage the parties to continue so that all Mozambicans of voting age are registered”.
Matsinhe claimed that the registration is taking place calmly, and with a “satisfactory” level of coverage, “although we have difficulties imposed by the lack of security in Cabo Delgado province”.
He said nothing about the obstacles put in the way of independent observation of the registration, or about the suspiciously large number of breakdowns of computers and printers, particularly in the initial weeks of registration.
The registration will determine how many parliamentary seats are allocated to each provincial constituency, and on that figure depends the number of candidates the competing parties must present in each province.
Matsinhe said that, to make it easier for the parties to present the nomination papers of their candidates, the CNE will issue a chart with “provisional” figures for the distribution of parliamentary seats. The parties could begin organizing the nomination papers while the voter registration was still going on, but at the end of the registration the definitive provincial breakdown of seats will be published.
Matsinhe urged the parties “to collaborate in good faith with the electoral bodies, and to submit their nomination papers within the established deadlines, and the sooner the better, to avoid last minute constraints”.
(AIM)
Pf/ (377)
