VOTER REGISTRATION: ONLY 37 PER CENT OF TARGET REACHED

Less than 40 per cent of the 9.14 million people expected to register as voters this year did so in the first half of the voter registration period, according to the general director of Mozambique’s Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), Felisberto Naife. Addressing a Maputo press conference on Tuesday, Naife said that in the first 37 days of registration, voter cards were issued to 3,345,177 people – 36.58 per cent of STAE’s target figure of 9,143.923.

Broken down by province, the figures are as follows, from highest to lowest percentage:

Cabo Delgado – 498,640 (55.47 per cent)

Gaza – 227,439 (45.09 per cent)

Inhambane – 245,228 (44.45 per cent)

Manica – 257,321 (40.62 per cent)

Sofala – 245,091 (37.91 per cent)

Maputo province – 141,495 (33.53 per cent)

Niassa – 206,824 (33.37 per cent)

Tete – 314,418 (32.73 per cent)

Zambezia – 629,191 (32.22 per cent) 

Nampula – 633,590 (31.78 per cent)

Maputo City – 35,940 (29.59 per cent).

These figures come from 3,728 (91 per cent) of the 4,078 voter registration brigades. Of the other 350, about 60 have not yet begun their work because of attacks by gunmen of the former rebel movement Renamo in parts of Sofala province, particularly in the rural areas of Gorongosa district. The rest have not reported in the full data for the first five weeks of the registration because of communications difficulties.The data refer to a point exactly half way through the registration which is due to last for 74 days – from 15 February to 29 April.To these figures should be added the 3,059,794 people registered in the 53 municipalities last year, ahead of the 20 November municipal elections. This means that 6,404,971 people now hold voter cards. This is 52.5 per cent of the total estimated electorate of 12,203,717.Naife was confident that the remaining 47.5 per cent of the electorate can be reached in the remaining five weeks of the registration period. He pointed out that heavy rains in late February and early March had slowed down the registration, “but the rains have now slackened, which is improving conditions on the ground”.Technical assistance for the computerised equipment used by the registration brigades has also improved, he claimed.There have been repeated complaints of computers, printers and batteries breaking down. Naife said that some of the problems were due to moving the equipment from the registration posts into storage every evening. During the movement, connections were loosened, and the brigades interpreted this as a breakdown.Naife promised that within a week all the brigades that have not yet begun work because of the military tensions in Sofala will be on the ground registering voters. Members of the National Elections Commission (CNE) have left Maputo to supervise registration in the provinces – particularly in Zambeza, Nampula and Tete. Two members of the CNE are in each of these provinces. Zambezia and Nampula are causing particular concern, because they are by far the most populous provinces. Between them, they account for about 40 per cent of the entire Mozambican population.Among the measures being taken, Naife said, is to extend the opening hours of the registration brigades. They are supposed to close at 16.00 – and have been doing so, even when there are still long queues of would-be voters outside the post. The brigades will now be instructed to carry on working when there are queues.Registration of Mozambicans living outside the country began on 14 March and will run for a month. Naife said that in the first week, 6,975 people registered – which is 11.79 per cent of the Mozambicans in the diaspora who registered for the last general elections in 2009.The numbers vary drastically – in Swaziland registration has already reached 65.74 per cent of the 2009 figure, but in Tanzania the figure is only 1.87 per cent.