5 September 2008
Maputo — Mozambique's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, on Friday afternoon delivered the nomination papers for its municipal election candidates to the Maputo offices of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service, just one and a half hours before the deadline expired.
Like the ruling Frelimo Party, Renamo is standing candidates in all 43 municipalities, both for the office of mayor and for the municipal assemblies. The Renamo nomination papers occupied 14 large boxes.
The spokesperson for the Renamo election office, Ivone Soares, told reporters that her party was optimistic about the 19 November local elections. "We want to increase substantially the number of municipalities under our control", she said.
But she declined to say how many municipalities would constitute "a substantial increase". Currently there are five Renamo mayors (in Beira, Marromeu, Nacala, Angoche and Mozambique Island). "It would be good to have six", she said, "but we want many more".
She insisted that the Renamo candidate for the central city of Beira, Manuel Pereira, has managed to collect enough supporting signatures (at least 2,307 - one per cent of the Beira registered electorate). Earlier, this had seemed in doubt, with reports from Beira that many Renamo supporters, angered that Renamo had ditched the present mayor, Daviz Simango, were refusing to sign Pereira's nomination papers.
Soares declined to make any comment about the divisions inside Renamo in Beira, or about Simango's decision to run as an independent
Soares said that Renamo will now draw up its local election manifestos, which will consist of the strategy for governance, drawn up by the Party leadership, plus the input of each of the mayoral candidates "who live in the municipalities, and understand their problems".
Simango's election agent has also delivered the nomination papers that will allow the mayor to stand as an independent candidate, backed by the "Group for Reflection and Change" (GRM), the Beira independent group that ran in the 1998 local elections and has been revived to support Simango.
The mayoral election in Beira will be a genuine three way contest, between Simango, Pereira and the Frelimo candidate, Lourenco Bulha. It is already shaping up to be the most hard fought municipal contest in Mozambican history.
Frelimo and Renamo are the only parties standing in all the municipalities. Mozambique's third largest party, the PDD (Party for Peace, Democracy and Development), is running candidates for the mayors and municipal assemblies in 18 municipalities.
The PDD is led by Raul Domingos, who was once the number two in Renamo, but was expelled from that party in 2000. The PDD's precursor, IPADE, won one seat in Beira and one seat in Dondo in the 2003 elections. In the 2004 parliamentary election, the PDD came third, but with only two per cent of the vote.
The Independent Party of Mozambique (PIMO), which is a thinly disguised Islamic party, also delivered its nomination papers, but for only 14 municipalities. PIMO currently holds three seats in municipal assemblies, in the northern cities of Nampula, Cuamba and Angoche. It is only standing for the assemblies, and has put forward no candidates for mayors.
The PIMO general secretary, Magalhaes Ibramugy, distanced himself from the statement made earlier in the week by the party's founder, Yaqub Sibindy, that PIMO will support the Frelimo candidates for mayor.
"Sibindy is the president of the party, not the owner of the party", he said. "We have yet to take a decision on this matter".
The Labour Party (PT) which, despite its name, has no connection with the Mozambican labour movement, delivered nomination papers for the municipal assemblies in Inhambane, Lichinga and Namaacha. The PT's best performance in the 2003 municipal elections was in Inhambane where it took 3.4 per cent of the vote - but this was not enough to win any seats on the Assembly. The PT is best known for its demand to restore the death penalty for murder.
The Mozambican National Union (UNAMO) submitted nomination papers for the municipal assemblies in Maputo, Matola, Beira and Milange. It is also running its president, Carlos Reis, for mayor of Milange, a small town in Zambezia province, near the border with Malawi.
Both the PT and UNAMO claimed they had faced difficulties in obtaining necessary documents such as criminal record certificates and certificates of residence, proving that their candidates have lived in the municipality for at least six months. They have a further five days to supply any missing documents.
Documents required for electoral purposes are, by law, free of charge. This did not stop local officials and public notaries demanding [payment and obstructing would-be candidates. The National Elections Commission (CNE) asked the Ministry of State Administration to put an end to such illegal practices, and the CNE believed the problem had been solved.
The Democratic Renewal Party (PRD) is running candidates in five municipalities. The PRD is a member of the Renamo-Electoral Union coalition - but nowadays the coalition only exists in parliament, and Renamo has dispensed with its ten minor partners for both the local elections and for the 2009 parliamentary elections.
A previously unheard of coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (AND), submitted nomination papers for the mayoral election in Matola and Pemba, and for the Matola municipal assembly. The AND consists of four tiny parties: the Liberal Front (FL), the Democratic Reconciliation Party (PAREDE), the National Reconciliation Party (PARENA), the Independent Social-Democratic Party (PASDI). PARENA and PAREDE took 0.6 and 0.3 per cent of the vote respectively in the 2004 general election.
A second coalition, ADACD (Democratic Alliance of Veterans for Development) is running candidates only for the Matola municipal assembly. The coalition name is downright fraudulent - the term "Veterans" ("Antigos Combatentes" in Portuguese) normally refers to those who took part in Frelimo's armed struggle for Mozambican independence. But the components of ADACD have no connection to either Frelimo or the independence war.
They are four small extra-parliamentary groups: the Mozambican People's Progress Party (PPPM - which was once a member of the Renamo-Electoral Union), the Mozambican Socialist Party (PSM), the Democratic Congress Party (PACODE), and the Union for Reconciliation (PUR).
The independent citizens' group NATURMA (Natives and Residents of Manhica) is running for both mayor and assembly seats in the southern town of Manhica. NATURMA did not stand in 2003, but in 1998 it gave Frelimo something of a shock. In what is supposed to be a Frelimo stronghold, its candidate for mayor took a surprising 41.3 per cent of the vote, and the NATURMA list won five seats in the municipal assembly to eight for Frelimo.
An independent group calling itself the Union for Change is running just one candidate, a former Renamo parliamentary deputy, Isabel Lino, for mayor of the central town of Gurue.
Jose Viana, head of the NGO Forum Link, tried to submit candidates for the Maputo municipal assembly. Evidently he had failed to read the electoral law, since he omitted to register with the National Elections Commission (CNE) first. Furthermore his list of candidates for the Assembly consisted of only five names. But the law obliges competing parties or groups to run a full slate, and there are 67 seats in the Maputo assembly.
Other independent groups may have delivered their nomination papers on Friday to STAE offices in the provinces, who will send them to Maputo over the weekend.
All the nomination papers must now be looked at to check for any irregularities. Fortunately, with the registration of the electorate now fully computerized, it should be easy to check whether the supporting signatures for the mayoral candidates belong to genuine, registered voters.
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