Teachers and other civil servants cannot be paid polling station staff (MMVs, membros das mesas de voto), which means nearly all polling stations are illegal. The Law on Public probity (12/2024 art 33b) prohibits any "office holder or member of a public body [to] receive remuneration from other public institutions." Although this is in the law as amended this year, it has been true for a decade and was also art 32 of the previous law (16/2012). MMVs are paid positions.

Paulo Cuinica, National Elections Commission (CNE) spokesperson, said Saturday that the CNE still does not have the money to pay the polling station staff. He was speaking in a phone-in programme on Radio Mozambique. That may be the solution - that MMVs must work unpaid.

The law (9/2014) establishing electoral administration says "the Nationla Elections Commission is a state body" and the "Techncial Secretariat for Electoral Administation [STAE, Secretariado Técnico da Administração Eleitora] is a public service". So they are clearly not allowed to pay additional money to teachers and other government officials to be MMVs.

This restriction on MMVs has gone unnoticed or been ignored. But with the Frelimo push to have their people running all polling stations, Podemos looked and found they cannot be paid.