Maputo — Mozambique's main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, on Thursday claimed that district administrations are refusing to issue residence certificates for its candidates for October's elections to provincial assemblies.

For these elections, held on the same day as the presidential and parliamentary elections, the provinces are divided into district constituencies. Each candidate must provide a certificate proving that he or she has lived in the district for at least six months.

The head of the Renamo election office, Luis Gouveia, told a Maputo press conference that the district administrations refuse to issue the certificates, alleging that they have no instructions from their superiors to do so.

Gouveia declared that this was "a conspiracy" by the ruling Frelimo Party to ensure that its candidates would be uncontested in the elections, because it was afraid that otherwise it would lose.

He claimed that the refusal to issue the residence certificates was common to the entire country "with a few exceptions".

"This is an unconstitutional attitude because it denies the right of Mozambicans to be elected", added Gouveia. "We are witnessing a real coup d'etat".

Renamo has contacted the Minister of State Administration, Lucas Chomera, asking him to intervene urgently "in defence of legality".

This letter, signed by Renamo election agent Saimone Macuiana, claims that Renamo has run into refusals in all districts in Gaza, Cabo Delgado, Sofala, Inhambane and Tete provinces. A detailed breakdown is given for only three of these provinces - Renamo says that residence certificates have been refused for 22 of its candidates in Cabo Delgado, 18 in Zambezia, and 55 in Sofala.

Gouveia also claimed that the voter registration adverts run by the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the civil service, are a disguised campaign on behalf of Frelimo.

The accusation is baffling - the advert shows a husband browbeaten by his wife into choosing exactly the same items from a restaurant menu. The message that follows is - don't let other people choose for you, make sure you are on the electoral register. There is no mention of Frelimo, or of any other party.

But at the end, the words "Presidential Elections", "Parliamentary Elections" and the voter registration dates (15 June to 29 July) appear in white against a red background. Since red is also the colour of the Frelimo flag, Renamo interprets this as a call on the electorate to vote for Frelimo.

If this line of argument were followed to its logical conclusion, the electoral bodies would also have to outlaw the use of blue (the dominant colour on the Renamo flag) and green (the background to the emblem of the PDD - Party for Peace, Democracy and Development - the party that came third in the 2004 elections).