At various voter registration posts, our correspondents are continuing to report cases where priority attendance is granted to public employees, which means that other potential voters who arrived at the queues in the early hours of the morning remain in line for the entire day without being able to register. This decision of the brigade members ignores the instruction from STAE-central, issued last Saturday, which orders the STAE provincial representations “to forbid the reception and special attendance to lists or organised groups outside the queues at the voter registration posts”.
In Alto Molócuè, the priority given to state employees and their acquaintances continues to dominate voter registration at various posts such as, for example, at the Futuro Melhor EPC. Staff from various sectors have enjoyed priority in the registration area, which infuriates the citizens who join the queues early in the morning, and end up being unable to register.
At the voter registration post at the Pista Velha EPC, also in Alto Molócuè, attendance is slow due to the priority given to the public employees, members of party cells and their friends. By the afternoon there were citizens who had not been able to register since the day when voter registration began. Some citizens, feeling tired, are abandoning this place or are resorting to other registration posts.
In the Inhamidzua Schools and at the Primary Teacher Training Institute, in Beira, teachers are given priority in registration.
In the Gungunhana Complete Primary School, in Tete city, citizens are denouncing cases of corruption and favouritism at the registration post. According to the interviewees, the STAE brigade members and the political party monitors, in the early hours of the day, attend to their relatives and friends to the detriment of those who have been in the queue since midnight. They say that in the room where the registration occurs, because it is the pedagogical sector, there are also cases of people who pretend to be teachers, wearing some kind of gown while they go to register. The supervisor denies the existence of cases of corruption.
In Monapo, the teachers were instructed to register in the schools where they work. However, at the post in the Napala Primary School, the Renamo monitors did not allow this to happen. As a result, there was agitation and an exchange of words between the supervisor of the registration post and the Renamo monitor. And there are signs that at the same post the brigade members are bribed by potential voters in order to facilitate the registration. The bribes include, for example, sacks of groundnuts. Even so, the citizens who pay bribes spend two or three days without managing to register, as we learned from a voter who used the same scheme to obtain registration and a voter card.
In Angoche, the voters accuse the brigade members of giving priority in attendance to their acquaintances and to teachers. That morning, none of the voters who were in the queue, including elderly people and pregnant women, were processed. Only teachers were registered.
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