EDM says it can solve northern power cuts
(AIM) – Mozambique’s publicly-owned electricity company, EDM, claims it has found a solution to the frequent power cuts which have repeatedly hit the northern provinces since 29 May.
The power cuts affected the last few days of voter registration ahead of the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October. Power cuts were reported on the last day, Saturday, in many of the municipalities where opposition political parties believe they can do well.
The lack of electricity gave the supervisors at the registration posts a chance to sabotage the decision of the National Elections Commission (CNE) to extend the hours for voter registration to 22.00 on Friday and to zero hours on Saturday.
According to correspondents of the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), the registration posts across huge swathes of Zambezia, Sofala, Nampula and Niassa provinces closed at 17.00, 18.00 or 19.00, using the power cuts as the excuse. The supervisors and the district directors of STAE (Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat) simply ordered the posts to close and sent the staff home.
The CNE never cancelled its instruction that on Saturday the posts should remain open until zero hours, and so the STAE directors simply usurped the powers of the CNE. Even if there were good, technical reasons for the power cuts, human ingenuity should have found a way to allow people in the queues to register despite the deadline of zero hours.
As it was, many thousands of citizens were unable to register on the last day, and this may threaten their right to vote in October.
