3 September 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's ruling Frelimo Party on Wednesday delivered the nomination papers for all its local election candidates to the Maputo headquarters of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service.
Frelimo is standing a full slate of candidates for all 43 municipalities, both for mayor and for members of the municipal assemblies. The paper work is such that the Frelimo nomination papers filled a dozen large boxes.
Every candidate must provide copies of their identity card, their voter's card (since only registered voters may stand), their criminal record certificate, and a declaration of residence, proving that they have been resident in the municipality for at least six months.
Each candidate must also provide a document accepting nomination, and that he or she is eligible to stand. Those ineligible to stand for municipal office include bankrupts, people in debt to the municipality, and serving soldiers, policemen, judges, prosecutors and finance officers.
In addition, every candidate for mayor must provide supporting signatures from at least one per cent of the registered electorate. Independent citizens' groups standing for the municipal assemblies must also meet this requirement. This means that anyone standing foe mayor of the largest municipality, Maputo city, must collect the signatures of 6,610 voters. In the smallest municipality, Manjacaze in Gaza province, only 70 signatures are needed.
To cover all the municipalities, 27,740 signatures are needed - and doubtless it was these signature forms that took up most of the space in the Frelimo boxes.
STAE must now verify that all the documents supplied by the candidates are in order. If irregularities are found the party has five days to correct them, and failure to do so results in disqualifying the candidate concerned.
Frelimo's interim election agent, Sergio Pantie, the central committee secretary for administration, told reporters that the lists presented to STAE were exactly those lists approved by the Party's provincial bodies in August. The top Frelimo leadership had not imposed any changes.
Asked about the impact on Frelimo of the split in the ranks of the main opposition party, Renamo, in the central city of Beira, Pantie claimed there was no impact at all, and Frelimo was simply mobilizing to ensure its largest possible vote in Beira.
Both Renamo factions in Beira - the one supporting current mayor Daviz Simango, and the one backing Manuel Pereira, the candidate imposed by Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama - have accused their rivals of taking bribes from Frelimo. Pantie scoffed at these conspiracy theories. He was sure that if there had been any truth in such stories, somebody in the media would have found out. "It is not Frelimo's policy to interfere in other parties", he added.
On Wednesday morning Yaqub Sibindy, leader of the thinly disguised Islamic party PIMO (Independent Party of Mozambique), announced that PIMO will back Frelimo in the municipal elections, if Frelimo offers it places on its lists for the municipal assemblies.
Asked to comment, Pantie said that, while Frelimo welcomed support from other parties, only the Frelimo Political Commission could decide on forming coalitions.
In any case Sibindy's approach has come far too late. Frelimo is hardly going to push its own militants off the lists to make way for members of a party which, in the 2004 general elections took just 0.59 per cent of the vote.
Pantie said that the next step in Frelimo's local electoral strategy is a meeting of the party's Central Committee, scheduled for 11-15 September, which will approve the municipal election manifestos.
Frelimo is the third political force to deliver its nominations - but the other two are only standing in one municipality each. MONAMO (Mozambican Nationalist Movement) is standing for the mayor and municipal assembly of the northern town of Cuamba. OCINA (Nacala Organisation of Independent Candidates) is running a full slate for the northern port of Nacala.
Time is now running out. Parties and citizens' groups wishing to context the elections must deliver their nomination papers by Friday.
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