27 July 2007
Maputo — Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has postponed the first elections for provincial assemblies from 20 December to 16 January.
Guebuza made this change, in a Presidential dispatch issued on Thursday night, on a proposal from the National Elections Commission (CNE), despite CNE spokesperson Juvenal Bucuane telling the daily paper "Noticias" just a day earlier that the CNE had received no formal request to change the date.
It was pressure from the country's large Moslem community that led to the change. Moslem leaders pointed out that 20 December coincides with Eid al-Adha, one of the moist sacred dates in the Islamic calendar.
Eid al-Adha falls at the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and is supposed to commemorate the biblical and koranic myth of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to god. Since Moslems account for about 18 per cent of the Mozambican population (according to the 1997 census), there were fears that holding elections on the date of Eid al-Adha would run an unnecessary risk of increased abstentions, since observant Moslems would prioritise their religious duties rather than queue up at the polling stations.
20 December was also inconvenient because it is just five days before Xmas, and a good number of voters would be busy preparing for the Xmas festivities, including traveling around the country to visit relatives. 16 January has the advantage that it is well after the festive season, and it also gives the electoral bodies an extra 26 days to prepare for the polling.
Even so, the timetable remains extremely tight. For example, the candidates for these elections are supposed to be announced 90 days before polling day which is 17 October. However, voter registration does not end until 18 October, and it is on the basis of that registration that the electoral bodies will know how many voters are in each province, and hence how many seats there will be in each provincial assembly, and how many candidates parties should propose.
But the greatest objection to 16 January is climatic. The date is deep within the Mozambican rainy season. On 16 January this year, it was raining torrentially in central Mozambique, and parts of the Zambezi valley were under water.
In mid-January this year, parts of Sofala, Manica, Tete and Zambezia provinces were inaccessible overland because the rains had rendered tertiary roads impassable. There is no guarantee that the same thing will not happen in January 2008, creating enormous logistical headaches for the distribution of the ballot papers and other voting materials. The only argument in favour of 16 January is that it is the last possible date that respects the constitutional provision that the elections to provincial assemblies must be held within three years of the amended constitution of 2004 taking effect.
The constitution took effect on 16 January 2005 - the day after the Constitutional Council validated the results of the December 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections.
Both the ruling Frelimo Party and the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, have insisted that the elections must be held in strict compliance with the Constitution. An alternative, however, would be to amend the Constitution.
The Constitution itself states "The constitution may only be amended five years after the last amendment law took effect, unless a majority of three quarters of the deputies of the Assembly of the Republic (the Mozambican parliament) decide to assume extraordinary powers of amendment". Such a 75 per cent majority is only possible if both Frelimo and Renamo want to amend the constitution - and to date there is no sign that either of them do.
Indeed, interviewed in Friday's issue of the "Noticias", Frelimo General Secretary Filipe Paunde claimed that to postpone the elections further would be "to amputate democracy". He argued that, since Mozambique is under the rule of law, the Constitution must be respected. "We must be consistent", he declared. Elections within the constitutional deadline were "a legal and democratic imperative", and would "contribute to the consolidation of democracy".
As for the fact that foreign donors have, to date, declined to finance these elections, Paunde wanted them to change their minds. He believed that the international community was still interested in the consolidation of democracy in Mozambique, in which case "I think it would be useful for our partners to review their position".
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