
Paulo Cuinica, Porta-voz da CNE Foto arquivo
Maputo, 22 Sep (AIM) – The spokesperson for Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE), Paulo Cuinica, claimed on Saturday that the conditions now exist throughout the country to hold the general elections scheduled for 9 October.
But in a phone-in programme on Radio Mozambique, he also admitted that the CNE still does not have the money to pay the polling station staff (MMVs).
In other words, the conditions for successful elections do not exist! Without the promised payments, the MMVs could bring voting to a standstill.
“We are training our election agents”, said Cuinica. “On Sunday the training of the MMVs begins. There will be at least 200,000 of them, including a ten per cent reserve. They will be allocated to the 26,330 polling stations that will be operating on 9 October”.
“As for the financial question, we still have a deficit”, admitted Cuinica. “But we believed that everything is being done so that this situation is resolved in time for us to hold election under appropriate conditions”.
But if the money for the MMVs is not forthcoming, then there are serious risks that the elections might collapse.
Political interference in the training of the MMVs already threatens the integrity of the elections.
Last week, the CNE’s executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE) was obliged to cancel a tender to select trainers for polling station staff (MMVs) in the central city of Quelimane.
STAE had discovered that the tender was fake, and that in reality the ruling Frelimo party had submitted a list of 154 candidates to fill the posts of trainers.
In ordered to safeguard “the principle of the transparency of administrative acts”, the central office of STAE annulled the Quelimane tender. The 154 names on the list will now have to be replaced by STAE staff from Zambezia and other provinces, to train the Quelimane MMVs.
Cancelling the fake tender in Quelimane inevitably leads to the question: in how many other districts has the same thing happened?
The anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), has repeatedly warned of attempts to corrupt the recruitment of trainers and of MMVs. CIP’s latest bulletin on the elections claims “the manipulation of the public tender is happening in all the districts”.
According to the electoral legislation, there should be seven MMVs at each polling station. Four of these should be selected by STAE on the basis of merit, through a public tender. The other three are appointed by the political parties represented in parliament – Frelimo, Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM).
But the manipulation discovered in Quelimane means that effectively Frelimo appoints five of the seven MMVs and the opposition parties just two.
(AIM)
Pf/ (453)