Maputo, 30 Apr (AIM) – Mozambique’s main opposition party, Renamo, on Monday registered with the National Elections Commission (CNE) to express its intention of participating in the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.
Immediately after submitting her party’s paperwork, the Renamo election agent, Gloria Salvador, declared that Renamo is ready to stand in the elections, but also denounced the frauds that have marked the voter registration that took place from 15 March to 28 April.
In particular, she claimed that miners and foreigners have been registered as Mozambican voters.
“We found that they are registering children and foreigners in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and that’s a scandal”, she accused.
This was not just a Renamo invention. A Zimbabwean newspaper, the “Mirror”, ran a detailed story last week, claiming that Zimbabwe’s ruling party, Zanu PF, is mobilising Zimbabwean citizens to register and vote for the Mozambican ruling party, Frelimo.
The Zimbabweans who spoke to the paper said they are “happy” to obtain a Mozambican document, the voter card, which they believed would allow them to purchase goods in bulk in Mozambican shops. Some said they would be voting in Mozambican elections for the second time, since they did the same thing in 2019.
They also believed that possession of a voter card would allow them to apply for a Mozambican passport, and they could then go and work in South Africa (a hope likely to be dashed, if the South African authorities keep their eye open).
In the northern province of Niassa, a citizen of Tanzanian nationality is being held by the police in the district of Marrupa, accused of attempting to falsify documents in order to register as a voter.
A report carried by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), in its bulletin on the elections, named the Tanzanian as Abdul Kadre Suleimane, who is an informal miner. The local police commander said the case reached the hands of the police through a denunciation made by a monitor from the MDM (Mozambique Democratic Movement). The Tanzanian was found to be carrying two identification documents with different data.
As of Monday, 14 political parties had registered with the CNE to take part in the elections. But only two of these – Renamo and the MDM – need be taken seriously. The rest are tiny organisations with few members and fewer votes, who do not hold any seats in municipal or provincial assemblies, much less in the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
Frelimo has not yet registered, but will have no difficulty in doing so.
(AIM)
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