43 parties, coalitions and citizens' lists have registered with the National Elections Commission (CNE) for the 9 October election, the CNE said today in a press conference. The full list is on https://bit.ly/Moz-El-CNE-10May24
The deadline for presenting the nomination papers for presidential candidates was extended to 25 June in electoral legislation amendments recently approved by parliament (Assembleia da República, AR). Candidates for president can be submitted by parties or be independents, but require notarized signatures of 10,000 voters. These are submitted to the Constitutional Council. The CC has in the past identified and rejected fake signatures for small party and independent candidates, who were then rejected.
But the CNE stressed today that the deadline for documents for candidates for national and provincial parliaments remains 10 June. For national and provincial parliaments, candidates lists must have at least as many candidates are there are seats to be filled, plus at least three supplementaries. The AR also changed the deadline for presenting the distribution of parliamentary seats by province to 5 June, which means that parties will only know five days in advance how many candidates that must submit, but can submit more than 3 suplementaries just in case.
Candidates for both AR and provincial assemblies must submit five documents: a notarized photocopy of the candidate's identity card, a certified photocopy of the voter's card, a criminal record certificate, a declaration agreeing to be a candidate, and a declaration of not subject to any ineligibility and is not on any other list of candidates. These are submiitted to the CNE. For provincial assemblies candidates must be registered within the province.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Only parties and coalitions are allowed to submit candidates for the AR. For provincial assemblies citizens lists as well as parties and coalitions are allowed to submit candidates.
(The two laws have entirely different structures. For AR these issues are in: Lei n.° 2/2019 de 31 de Maio, art 168, 178 and for Provincial Assemblies in: Lei n.° 3 /2019 de 31 de Maio, art 10, 19, 20, 25)
There has always been an arithmetic error in the electoral law (currently art 165 of Lei n.° 2/2019 de 31 de Maio) which is that the number of AR seats per province is calculated by dividing the number of registered voters by 248 and then using that number to assign seats by province.(2 seats are for the diaspora.) That does not work because sometimes it assigns 247, 248 or 249 seats. The CNE then acts entirely in secret, without ever publicising what it does, to give or take away a seat. This problem has been known for more than a century and various methods are used to assign the last seat. Indeed, the electoral law uses the d'hondt method to assign seats to parties - but not to assign seats to provinces, forcing the CNE to make secret changes. See https://bit.ly/Moz-El-dHondt
The CNE press statement is dated both 10 April, at the bottom, and 10 May at the top. It is a minor sloppiness, but nothing is checked, in part due to obsessive secrecy. The sloppiness can be much more serious. Five years ago the CNE and thus the Constitutional Council twice published incorrect final election results, and replaced them in secret with no explanation. But of course we noticed, which only made the CC and CNE look more foolish.
