Observers Have Witnessed Registration Of Over 40,000 Voters

68 Mais Integridade observers paid more than 3,000 visits to 905 registration posts in 27 municipalities.

The observers said that, overall, they had free access to the registration posts, and to the information necessary for effective observation. But, in the fifth week of observation, there were still ten cases in which access to the posts was illegally denied to observers.
Thus in one post in the Alto Molocue municipality, in the central province of Zambezia, the head of the brigade refused to allow the observers to enter the room where the registration was taking place, obliging them to watch from outside.

There were cases where the obstruction came, not from brigade members, but from political party monitors. In a post in Nampula city, monitors from the ruling Frelimo Party, questioned the observers – which they have no right to do. Only after a discussion were the observers allowed to do their job.

In a post in the northern city of Pemba, monitors from the main opposition party, Renamo, banned observers from taking photos, and refused to explain this ban.

Mais Integridade noted that in the fifth week, there were still cases where operations had to be suspended for lack of registration materials, but there fewer cases than in previous weeks where registration stopped because the printer had broken down. In all, one in five posts, although open, had to stop work because of these problems.

In some cases, voter cards were not printed for weeks. In such cases, the voters were registered, and told to pick up their cards later. In the fifth week, 14 per cent of the voters registered did not receive their cards. This could cause a serious problem on election day, if people without cards try to vote.

In many posts, there were still lengthy queues at the end of the day – this was the case in 45 per cent of the posts observed (which was better than the 53 per cent of the previous week). Mais Integridade calculated the average time taken to register one voter at seven minutes, the same as in the previous week.

The National Elections Commission (CNE) ruled on 17 May that the posts must stay open for an extra two hours a day – from 07.00 to 17.00, instead of from 08.00 to 16.00. But the observers found that some posts were not observing the new timetable, for various pretexts, such as the late arrival of electoral material, breakdowns of the vehicles carrying the material, or that the supervisor, with the keys to the premises, always arrived late.

By 15 May, 4.7 million voters had been registered, which is 47.4 per cent of the target figure of 9.9 million. The breakdown by province was as follows:

Province Target Registered Percentage

Maputo city 728,946 340,507 46.7%

Maputo province 1,283,336 578,481 45.1%

Gaza 517,020 298,685 57.8%

Inhambane 530,076 262,708 49.6%

Sofala 943,211 426,950 45.3%

Manica 732,063 412,023 56.3%

Tete 861,843 355,016 41.2%

Zambezia 1,429,873 661,392 46.3%

Nampula 1,474,465 681,795 46.2%

Cabo Delgado 740,538 441,839 59.7%

Niassa 680,254 243,718 35.8%

Total 9,921,625 4,703,114 47.4%

Mais Integridade urged the electoral administration bodies to speed up the pace of registration, especially in Niassa and Tete, and to ensure rapid repairs in all cases of equipment malfunctions.

The brigades should be educated on the right of observers to obtain information, said the Mais Integridade statement, and the electoral management bodies should crackdown against queue jumping, whereby some groups of voters (such as teachers, or other public employees) are prioritized at the expense of other citizens who may have been waiting in the queue for hours.

(AIM)