Maputo — The Mozambican government announced on Tuesday that voter registration ahead of the 2024 general elections will begin on 1 February and last until 16 March.
Voters in the 65 municipalities, who registered to vote in the 11 October municipal elections, will not have to re-register. But everyone else must register, if they want to vote in the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections.
One of the many peculiarities in the Mozambican election system is that the entire electorate must be registered in each electoral cycle (every five years). This was a demand first raised by the main opposition party, Renamo, after the first multi-party elections in 1994.
So, election after election, voters go to the registration posts to acquire a new voter card, and the old one is thrown away. A voter who was 18 years old in 1994, and who voted in every subsequent election, will have been issued with six voter cards, all of which are now entirely useless, even for identification purposes,
The repeated registration of the entire electorate is an extraordinary waste of time and resources, but there seems little chance that the system will change in the near future.
The voter registration this year, ahead of the municipal elections, was riddled with illegalities and fraud, detailed by credible observer bodies. Unless there is a complete overhaul of the district branches of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), these sorry scenes could be repeated in 2024.
The months of February and March are unsuited for voter registration since they fall within the rainy season. Indeed, February is often the wettest month of the year.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
This year, the voter registration ahead of the municipal elections was originally scheduled to begin on 20 February. But precisely because of the risks posed by the rainy season, the date was changed, and the registration was held from 20 April to 3 June.
It is strange that the National Elections Commission (CNE) has proposed, and the government has accepted, dates for registration that are in the middle of the rainy season. Heavy rains might discourage voters in rural areas from registering, and could make roads impassable.
Voters in the diaspora will also be registered. Mozambicans living abroad have a right to vote in the nine countries where there are significant Mozambican communities. These are South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Portugal and Germany.
These diaspora communities elect two members to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
