This week, on 11 October, Mozambicans will vote to choose their representatives in 65 municipalities across the country in the sixth municipal elections. Ensuring the protection of election observers is going to be critical to the credibility of the election. But this means we have to protect them and treat them as human rights defenders.

These are the first elections since the closure of the last Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) military base in June 2023, out of the 16 that remained since the signing of the General Peace Agreement in 1992.

Therefore, these are the first elections to take place in the context of effective peace, at least in terms of the absence of weapons of war in the hands of political parties.

In the past, Mozambican elections have been marked by irregularities, casting doubt on their credibility. They have also been marred by politically motivated violence, affecting not only electoral participation but also electoral observers and political party agents. Electoral violence has undermined the consolidation of democratic progress and, importantly, deterred voters from participating in electoral cycle processes, resulting in large-scale voter suppression.

In 2019, violence against election observers reached its peak with the brutal murder of observer Anastacio Matavel in Gaza province. This incident prompted efforts to build trust in election observers, who are classified as human rights defenders in the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.

Consequently, there is an urgent need to establish infrastructures and platforms for their protection throughout the entire electoral cycle.

It is...