Moatize mayor's death
forces by-election

The mayor (president of the Municipal Council) of Moatize, Paulino Mulaicho Jeque, died in March. By law, the technical election secretariat STAE must set a by-election (eleição intercalar) date within 15 days and the election must be held within 45 days after that. A date of 1 June was announced, but no election could be held without a CNE.

Now that enough CNE members have been named, the government will need to swear in the new members and announced a new date for the election.

STAE says it has already done the organisation necessary for the by-election. In particular, it has computerised the Moatize register, so this will be the first test of computerisation.

The by-election will be very expensive. The present electoral law requires that for any election, there must be national, provincial and district election commissions as well as a range of party-nominated technicians demanded by Renamo to ensure fairness.

Moatize is tiny, with only 12,811 registered voters. STAE estimated that the by-election would cost $350,000, 80 per cent of which would be salaries for all of the people required by law. The Ministry of Planning and Finance rejected this initial budget, and a new budget of about half this has now been proposed.

Virgílio Chapata, a senior Renamo official in Tete, told the daily Notícias (24 July) that, for the first time, Renamo would not boycott a municipal election and that a Renamo-UE candidate would stand. Renamo would have a good chance of winning in Moatize.

+ There is also the possibility of a by-election in Milange, where it is rumoured that the president wishes to resign.
+ The law also requires that the electoral register must be updated annually. This was also impossible without a CNE, and it is unclear if an update will be done this year.

 
Rewriting the election laws

Rewriting the election laws requires tackling both political and technical problems.

The present laws contain several errors and conflicts. For example, the local government law calls for elections within 45 days, yet the electoral law requires a longer process for nominations and elections. And the method for calculating the number of parliamentary seats for each province is mathematically incorrect, as the CNE discovered last year. (See Bulletin 23)

But the overriding problems are political. The potential cost of the tiny Moatize election underlines just how cumbersome and expensive the electoral process has become. So far the donors have been willing to pay in order to keep Renamo participating, but even so the procedures added at Renamo's requests did not satisfy the opposition party.

This has led some in Renamo, including parliamentary leader Ossufo Quintine, to call for even more elaborate, time-consuming and expensive processes. He said the CNE should act only by consensus, giving Renamo a veto, and that party-nominated staff should be involved in the process (and be paid) for longer periods of time.

A counter view is gaining some support inside Renamo, however. Politicisation of election structures will always lead to the appointment of more people from the governing party, so that little is gained. Instead, the process needs to be made simpler and more transparent, it is argued.