MISA condemns failure to deliver voter cards
(AIM) – The Mozambican chapter of the regonal press freedom body, MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa), has protested at the failure of the electoral management bodies to deliver voter cards to many thousands of citizens who registered as voters.
Voter registration, ahead of the municipal elections scheduled for 11 October, took place from 20 April to 3 June. Millions of citizens resident in the 65 municipalities registered, but by the end of registration on Saturday night many thousands had not received their voter cards, which is the only proof that they are registered voters. On voting day, each voter should present his or her voting card at the polling station.
“Failure to deliver the voter cards calls into question the exercise of voting rights”, warns MISA. Without a voter card, a citizen cannot be a candidate in the elections, and cannot prove that he is duly registered.
“This situation is the entire responsibility of the electoral adminstration which, because of its incapacity to guarantee the adequate functioning of the equipment it acquired, particularly the printers, and to provide the registration brigades with enough material to operate the printers, did not comply with its legal obligation to register in full the eligible citizens who appeared before it, including the issuing and delivery of a voter card”, stressed MISA.
Thousands of people queued up for hours, or even days, to register, but now may be unable to use their constitutional right to vote and to be elected, because the electoral administration has defaulted on its legal obligations.
MISA added that from Monday to Friday (5-8 June) the voter rolls will be on display at the places where the registration posts operated. The registration brigades and their equipment should also be there.
The “Mais Integridade” (“More Integrity”) civil society consortium, of which MISA is part, is urging the CNE to identify the brigades that did not not issue all the cards of the voters they registered, and to create urgently the technical, material and logistical conditions so that the cards be printed and delivered to their owners during this period when the voter rolls are on display.
It also calls for an intensive information campaign to urge the voters to go to the registration posts to pick up their cards.
“If necessary, the presence of the brigades at the posts should be extended beyond 8 June, to guarantee delivery of all the cards”, stresses “Mais Integridade”.
(AIM)
