Insurgent attacks force evacuation of registration brigades in Chiure: Some villages in Chiure district were attacked by insurgents, and STAE evacuated registration brigades. On Tuesday 23 April, at 16.00, insurgents attacked the village of Nantavo, 30 km from Chiure town, where they killed three civilians, and burnt down the houses of all the block chiefs and a school. Earlier in the day, at 06.00, the insurgents entered Mecolene village, in Chiure-Velho, where they stayed for part of the day. Last week the brigades at Mazeze were also evacuated to the Chiure district capital.
Staff and students forced to register in Chongoene: There was a crowd of citizens who wanted to register at the Chonguene Complete Primary School B, Gaza, at 15.40 on Thursday (25 April). Our correspondent discovered they were staff of the public administration and students from the Chonguene Secondary School. They said their superiors obliged staff members to present voter cards. And those who did not have cards were forced to go and register. A member of the public administration in Chonguene district said that her chief had excused her from work on Thursday so that she could register “and I should give him the card”. The same was done to the students. They say they are threatened that that they will not be allowed to take the quarterly exams, unless they present a voter card.
Mágoè registers more than its adults: Up until Thursday (25 April) Mágoè district, in Tete province, had registered 104% of the total number of voting age adults. But there are still crowds at some registration brigades. On Thursday, the team of CIP observers in that district observed the registration posts in Dewetewe locality, specifically in the Calue, Chibwe, Nhadandaro and Tchodo neighbourhoods. There are still crowds at the registration posts and each brigade is registering an average of 100 to 170 people a day. There is a risk that the posts will not manage to register all the voters by Sunday.
Two weeks without registering any voters: The supervisor of the voter registration post at the Mucoria EPC, in Mecula district, in Niassa, said that this is the second week in which the post has not registered a single voter. The entire population, 188 voters, has been registered.
MDM monitors are on strike in Niassa: They are not inspecting the current voter registration, election management bodies in the province said. According to our sources, only 2% of the monitors are participating. The reasons are not known. There also appears to be dispute in Gorongosa district. Zambo Alficha, the chair of the Gorongosa District Elections Commission, said on Tuesday (23 April) that 44 MDM monitors were accredited to inspect the voter registration, but so far none of them have appeared at the registration posts.
Local fights mean registration never resumed in Manhiça nor Marrupa: Registration has not yet restarted in the neighbourhoods of Xikwembo and Chibucutso, on the outskirts of Manhiça, Maputo province. The STAE district director, Simone Ripinha, said he is still waiting for authorisation from the district government to mobilise the registration brigade to resume the registration that has been halted since 26 March, due to demonstrations claiming that the Manhica mayor, Luís Munguambe, has not kept his promises. The governor of Maputo province visited Manhiça district last week and announced that, after talks with the community, consensus had been reached that registration would resume on Monday (22 April). But it did not.
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And at the voter registration centre at EPC Maputo, in Marrupa, Niassa, no one comes to register, as residents protest the failure of the Niassa National Reserve. Elephants, such as the one in the upper right of the photo, are coming into the local farms, destroying their fields and food during the harvest season
Our correspondents witnessed elephants in a producer's field in the sunlight, devastating his produce. "If the government doesn't resolve this situation, we won't register or vote," the residents threatened.
