DEADLINE FOR CIVIL SOCIETY CNE CANDIDATES IS NEXT MONDAY

Mozambican civil society organisations have until next Monday, 31 March, to submit the names of candidates for the four remaining seats on the National Elections Commission (CNE).Mario Sevene, chairperson of the parliamentary ad-hoc commission organizing the selection of the civil society candidates, told a Maputo press conference on Wednesday that the resolution from the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, was published in the official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica”, on Monday.The resolution establishes a deadline of seven days from publication for the submission of nomination papers. Sevene admitted that so far not a single nomination has arrived. He said the Commission is placing advertisements in some of the media calling for nominations. In fact the Commission had already placed one advertisement in the daily paper “Noticias” on 21 March. Since this was before publication of the resolution setting up the ad-hoc commission, it was of doubtful legality. It also gave a wrong closing date of 28 March.The ad-hoc commission is obliged by law to submit a short list with a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 24 names to the Assembly plenary which will then vote. Since the ruling Frelimo Party holds 191 of the 250 seats in the Assembly, clearly a candidate can only be elected to the CNE if he or she is supported by Frelimo.Yet the increase in the number of civil society seats on the CNE was imposed by the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo, and Renamo is taking part in the work of the ad-hoc commission. This leads to suspicions that an informal deal will be struck, whereby the Frelimo parliamentary group will select two of the four members, and the opposition (Renamo and the Mozambique Democratic Movement, MDM) the other two. Asked exactly how the list would be whittled down to four names, Sevene would only say “The plenary will decide”.

Initially, under a law passed in December 2012, the CNE consisted of 13 members – eight from the parliamentary political parties (five appointed by Frelimo, two by Renamo and one by the MDM), three from civil society, a judge appointed by the Higher Council of the Judicial Magistrature, and an attorney appointed by the Higher Council of the Public Prosecutor’s Office.But the changes imposed by Renamo during its dialogue with the government, and rubber-stamped by the Assembly in February, increased the size of the CNE to 17, and threw off the two legal professionals. The new composition of the CNE is five from Frelimo, four from Renamo, one from the MDM and seven from civil society.The three civil society members elected last year (including CNE chairperson Abdul Carimo) remain in place, and all the political party nominees have been chosen. It remains for the Assembly to choose the other four civil society members. According to Sevene, the main requirements the candidates have to meet are that they must be Mozambican citizens over the age of 25 who will “perform their technical and professional duties with independence, impartiality, objectivity, zeal, honesty, loyalty, neutrality and dignity”.