Maputo — The district of Quissanga, in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, was unable to register even 50 per cent of its potential voters, due to raids by islamist terrorists, according to the spokesperson for the National Elections Commission (CNE), Paulo Cuinica.
While voter registration ahead of the presidential, parliamentary and provincial elections scheduled for 9 October took place in most of the country between 15 March and 28 April, the government decreed a postponement in Quissanga.
The registration in Quissanga began on 2 May and lasted for 15 days. At a Maputo press conference on Monday, Cuinica said the target had been to register 28,930 votes. But only 14,288 were registered - or just over 49 per cent of the target
"Because of the attacks both the voters and the members of the registration brigades were afraid', he said. "In the last two days we had to withdraw four brigades who were working there, and on the final day we were working with only five brigades, because the situation did not allow the brigade members to stay there'.
Nonetheless, the election bodies in Cabo Delgado claim that they managed to register 103.12 per cent of their provincial target. This is a suspiciously high figure, and suggests that some of the Cabo Delgado brigades registered ghost voters - people who do not exist.
Some of the Quissanga potential voters may have registered in other parts of the province, regarded as safer.
Meanwhile, three minor political parties have delivered nomination papers for some of their parliamentary candidates.
Cuinica said the Ecology Party (PEMO) has presented candidates for all 13 constituencies - 11 in Mozambique, and two in the diaspora. Monarumo (National Movement for the Recovery of Mozambican Unity) has delivered the paperwork for candidates in the 11 provincial constituencies, while Parede (Party of Democratic Reconciliation) has only presented candidates for Maputo city.
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These three organisations are political parties only in name. They have no representation in any provincial or municipal assembly, let alone in the national parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. They are unknown to most of the public, and are among the dozens of tiny parties who appear at election times in the hope of receiving a subsidy from the state budget.
The three parliamentary parties - the ruling Frelimo Party and the opposition Renamo and MDM (Mozambique Democratic Movement) - have yet to submit any candidates.
Cuinica said the deadline for submitting the nomination papers is 10 June. But this date is wrong: parliament amended the electoral law on 30 April, and the CNE is ignoring the changes made, perhaps because President Filipe Nyusi has not yet promulgated the new law.
Under the changes approved by parliament, the final date for submitting nomination papers is 25 June, not 10 June.
The new law states that all the lists of candidates should be presented 106 days before the elections - that is, by 25 June. But the old laws demanded the lists of candidates 120 days before the elections to the AR (10 June), which is the date cited by the CNE.
Cuinica said the CNE s now analysing the nomination papers it has received, and will call on the parties to correct any irregularities detected.
