Mozambique Elections 220-221 – 7 March 2024
The full bulletin in pdf is on Special report: 25 years electoral fraud is on
Head of STAE Operations in Quelimane jailed for printing own voters cards
Vitorino de Azevedo, the head of operations of the Quelimane branch of STAE, has been found guilty, of producing voter cards on his own printing press, in the Quelimane neighbourhood of Icidua, last year during registration. Quelimane city court sentenced hm to one year in jail for abuse of office and embezzlement. (Diario de Zambezia)
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STAE sacks Beira head for “Beira Supervisors” WhatsApp group
Beira City STAE District Director, Carlos do Rosario, was dismissed for his involvement in the creation of an illicit WhatsApp group, named “Beira Supervisors”. Messages from the group published here showed that the group’s purpose was to exclude supporters of opposition parties in Beira during last year’s voter registration.
The announcement was made yesterday Wednesday during a meeting in Maputo between the National Elections Commission (CNE) and civil society organisations. STAE announced it had also dismissed STAE directors in Cuamba, Quelimane, and Marromeu.
In Beira, Carlos do Rosário and registration post supervisors set a WhatsApp group to instruct members of the registration brigades to recognise and receive documents only from supporters of the ruling Frelimo Party.
When the scandal became public last year, the CNE instructed national STAE director Loló Correia, to suspend Carlos dos Rosario. But Correia refused, and only suspended Rosario this year, after the municipal elections were over. (For more details, see bulletins 78, 79 and 87)
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Reward for Marromeu chaos
Daniel Cuzaminho, STAE district director in Marromeu, was dismissed for organising the total chaos of the 11 October municipal elections that forced a 10 December re-run which was even more corrupt and chaotic, but gave Frelimo victory. Frelimo rewarded him for his success, and he was promoted to be Director of the Ponta-Gea Secondary School, in Beira.
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Placement of registration brigades has been published, and again there will be more teams in Frelimo areas than in Renamo ones, making it harder for Renamo voters to register. We compared provinces with a similar population density. Nampula and Maputo province have a similar high population density, yet in Nampula every brigade must try to register 4214 people, while in Maputo province each brigade has only 2717 potential voters.
Niassa and Gaza are similar low density provinces, but in Niassa teams must try to register 3493 people, while in Gaza their target is less than half that, 1507 potential voters.
The table shows all provinces. The full list of registration location and brigades is on .
Registration starts on 15 March, only a week away. But in the north heavy rains continue and there is still flooding, reports the Ministério das Obras Públicas in their daily flood reportMany dirt road will be impassable for several weeks to come, which will delay registration in rural areas.
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CNE expects 16.4 million voters for next October’s elections
The National Elections Commission (CNE) on 22 February announced that it expects there will be 16.4 million voters registered for the general elections of 9 October, of whom 279,600 will be in the diaspora.
According to the CNE, this year only 7.7 million voters will be registered, since 8,723,805 voters were already registered in 2023, prior to the municipal elections of 11 October.
Voter registration for the population of voting age will take place between 15 March and 28 April, primarily in districts that do not contain municipalities. Over the same period, the voter rolls in the districts with municipalities will be updated, for those citizens who did not register in 2023, lost their voter cards, or changed address.
In the diaspora, registration will occur between 30 March and 28 April 2024. In Africa, the registration will be held in South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya, and in Europe there will be registration in Portugal and Germany.
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More than 6,000 brigades and 9,000 registration posts will be set up
The CNE also announced, in the same press conference, that to undertake the voter registration, 6,330 registration brigades will be set up, 6,033 inside Mozambique and 297 abroad.
There will be 9,165 voter registration posts, 8,774 inside Mozambique, and 391 in the diaspora. STAE is training 78 national facilitators, 1272 provincial trainers, and 19,919 brigade members. In addition 6886 civic education agents are being trained.
The CNE also said that the Mobile ID computers are already in all the provinces, and solar panels and consumables are now being distributed. In total, there are 7,092 Mobile IDs, of which 3,192 were used in 2023.
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Government has disbursed only 33% of the election budget
The budget forecast for this election year is about 19.9 billion meticais ($310mn). But government has disbursed only 6.5 billion meticais ($100mn), which is only one-third of the overall budget..
