Maputo — The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, hopes to have amended electoral legislation approved by the second half of 2011 - which will be around two years before the next municipal elections and three years before the next presidential and parliamentary elections.

The first deputy chairperson of the Assembly, Lucas Chomera, told reporters on Tuesday, after a session of the Assembly's governing board, the Permanent Commission, that a full timetable has now been approved which will lead to approval of the new legislation in September 2011.

By this August, the three political parties represented in the Assembly (the ruling Frelimo Party, the former rebel movement Renamo, and the Mozambique Democratic Movement, MDM) must submit their proposals on what should be amended, to the Assembly's Commission on Public Administration, the body in charge of redrafting the legislation.

By September the Commission will hold hearings and consultations with the extra-parliamentary parties, and civil society organisations. It will also consult with the outgoing National Elections Commission (CNE), and its executive body, the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE).

After the consultations, the Commission will produce a comparative matrix, showing the areas where there is consensus, and those where there is disagreement.

From October this year until June 2011, the Commission will try to harmonise all the various proposals presented. It will then draft a final version of the amended legislation to be presented to the Assembly plenary in September 2011.

If this timetable holds, both the Electoral bodies and the political parties will know what is in the law years before the elections take place. There will no longer be any excuses for hasty drafting, overlapping deadlines, or ambiguous phrasing that puts far too much discretionary power in the hands of the CNE.

Since the potential candidates will know what is required of them so far in advance, they will also have no excuse for submitting incomplete nomination papers, or for delivering their nominations on the last possible day, which is what happened in 2009.