Maputo — Alfredo Gamito, chairman of the Mozambican parliament's ad-hoc commission reviewing the country's electoral legislation, is in favour of a brand-new voter registration, rather than a simple update of the existing registers, prior to the municipal and general elections, scheduled for 2003 and 2004 respectively.
According to a report in Thursday's issue of the daily paper "Noticias", the ad-hoc commission has reached consensus on the need for a new registration - but no-one knows where the money for this will come from.
The main problem is that large numbers of voters lost all their documents, including their voting cards, in the floods of 2000 and 2001.
This will be the third complete registration of the entire population of voting age in less than a decade. The voters were all registered and issued with voting cards prior to the 1994 election, and again, on the insistence of the former rebel movement Renamo, prior to the 1999 polls.
A complete re-registration means that existing voting cards become invalid (contrary to the promises given to the electorate). Entirely new electoral registers will be drawn up, and thus the painstaking computerisation of the 1999 registers will have been no more than a gargantuan waste of time and money.
The argument in favour of re-registering the entire population is feeble. For, serious though the floods were, they did not strike the entire country, and the great majority of Mozambicans were not forced out of their homes and did not lose all their documents.
A strong argument can be made for a complete re-registration exercise in those areas worst hit by the floods (large areas of Gaza, Sofala and Maputo provinces), but not elsewhere.
The existing registration law envisages annual updates of the electoral register, removing the names of those who have died, adding those who have reached the age of 18, and switching from one register to another those who have moved. But in eight years there has been just one update, immediately prior to the 1998 local elections.
Gamito said there are still differences on the ad-hoc commission over the composition of the future National Elections Commission (CNE).
The commission agreed that the CNE should have a chairperson chosen by civil society, two deputy chairs, and 16 other members, appointed by the political parties in proportion to the number of seats they hold in parliament (which means that the ruling Frelimo Party will appoint nine and the Renamo-Electoral Union coalition seven).
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But Frelimo also wants the government to appoint a non- voting member of the CNE, who would liaise between the CNE and all the various bodies of the state apparatus. This makes sense in that, in the final analysis, it is the government that is responsible for holding the elections, and particularly for raising the money that will make them possible.
But Renamo, in its hostility to the executive, claims that there is "no role" for the government on the CNE.
There has also been no advance over the composition of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), which is the electoral branch of the civil service, and acts as the executive body of the CNE during electoral periods.
Frelimo argues that STAE should essentially be a politically neutral body, part of the public administration, while Renamo wants a thoroughly politicised body stuffed full of political party appointees from top to bottom.
Gamito played down the differences, saying that they might be overcome "at any moment".
The ad-hoc commission is preparing a national public debate on the electoral legislation, which should run from 22 July to 7 August.
The last plenary sitting of parliament determined that the ad-hoc commission should complete its work by 15 August, and that the revised laws should be deposited by 19 August, thus making possible their approval at an extraordinary sitting of parliament in September. Gamito was optimistic that these deadlines can be met.
