19 November 2008
Maputo — There have been no incidents reported during the initial hours of voting in Mozambique's third local elections in any of the 43 municipalities, according to the Chairperson of the National Elections Commission (CNE), Joao Leopoldo da Costa.
Speaking to reporters immediately after he had cast his own vote at a polling station in a Maputo school, Costa said he had been in telephone contact with all the provincial election commissions, who had told him there had been no disturbances of any kind.
The provincial commissions, he added, had confirmed that there are long queues all over the country. Everywhere the election materials had arrived in good time, allowing polling stations to open on time at 07.00.
Costa said he was not surprised at the apparently high turnout, which he regarded as showing an increase in the sense of citizenship.
"As more elections are held also the awareness of voters grows, and so turnout increases with each election", he claimed. One could make a case that this is true in the local elections - turnout rose from around 15 per cent in 1998 (but these elections were boycotted by most of the opposition) to 28 per cent in 2003, and that figure looks certain to be greatly exceeded in the current vote.
But the trend in presidential and parliamentary elections is quite the reverse. In the first general elections, in 1994, turnout was 84.5 per cent of the registered electorate, but fell to 68.1 per cent in 1999, and to 36.4 per cent in 2004. (The 2004 elections were held with electoral registers that were grossly inflated, largely by the failure to remove the names of voters who had died. Adjusting for this, turnout was a slightly more respectable 43 per cent).
The smooth functioning of the polling stations won praise from ordinary voters and political leaders alike. Among those who told reporters they thought that electoral organisation had greatly improved were former President Joaquim Chissano, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo, and the leader of the main opposition party, Renamo, Afonso Dhlakama.
Chissano said previous elections had been "moments of learning how to organise, and how to transmit voter education messages". He said the long queues at Maputo polling stations showed that this time people had understood the messages, and that voting was a right that should be exercised by all citizens.
Diogo said she was not surprised at the turnout, because there had also been an impressive turnout for the voter registration. The electorate was completely re-registered between September 2007 and March 2008. After the date for the municipal elections was fixed, there was a further registration period of a month, in July, essentially to give people reaching the voting age of 18 before 19 November the change to register.
"There's a qualitative leap in terms of turnout and of the organisation of these elections, and that's very positive", Diogo said.
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