Maputo — The Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, plans to hold an extraordinary sitting in September to amend the country's electoral legislation.
The spokesman for the Assembly's governing board, its Standing Commission, Mateus Katupha, told reporters on Wednesday that the extraordinary sitting will take place from 9 to 20 September.
The Assembly could save large sums of money if it held the extraordinary sitting immediately prior to the next normal session of parliament, which should begin in late October.
But no - with its habitual disregard for financial rationality, the Assembly will fly deputies down to Maputo in early September for the extraordinary sitting, fly them back home in late September, then fly them back down again in October.
Katupha said the deputies should arrive in Maputo by 5 September, and will spend the next four days preparing for the extraordinary sitting - including testing out the Assembly's new electronic voting system.
The system will be used for the first time in September, and should speed up proceedings considerably, eliminating the need for a physical count.
Katupha said the dates for the extraordinary sitting were decided after the Standing Commission consulted the various parliamentary working commissions. The chairpersons and rapporteurs of the commissions were invited to Wednesday's meeting of the Standing Commission.
Optimistically, the Standing Commission is tabling several other items for the extraordinary sitting - including adjustments to the state budget, and a bill on deputies' social security.
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The last time such a bill was passed, in 1998, it was vetoed by President Joaquim Chissano, because the deputies had awarded themselves pension rights far in excess of any other pension scheme, public or private, in the country.
Also on the agenda will be a report from the Assembly's Petitions Commission on the dispute between the government and former migrant workers who returned in 1990 from the now defunct German Democratic Republic. The ex-migrants claim the government owes them vast sums of money, and have rejected a government offer of 7.5 million US dollars.
Katupha said that Alfred Gamito and Francisco Machambisse, chairperson and rapporteur of the ad-hoc commission reviewing the electoral legislation, presented "an optimistic report" to the meeting.
"They both said that by 19 August they would be able to deposit drafts of the three bills under review", he said. These are the law on the National Elections Commission (CNE), the law on voter registration, and the law on municipal elections.
Gamito is from the ruling Frelimo Party, and Machambisse from the Renamo-Electoral Union opposition coalition. The fact that they agreed on the timetable, said Katupha, "suggests that the great divergences between Frelimo and Renamo have been overcome".
