Mozambican voter registration reaches 72 per cent

According to the latest figures from the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), as of last Thursday evening, more than 72 per cent of the potential electorate had registered.

In coordination with the National Statistics Institute (INE), STAE has now revised upwards its estimate for the number of potential voters in one of the ten new municipalities, the town of Boane in Maputo province. With an original estimate of only 15,782 potential Boane voters, the registration brigades found they were registering almost twice that number.

STAE and the INE, based on the 2007 census, have looked at the figures again, and have increased the Boane potential electorate to 46.156. This means that the total potential municipal electorate has risen slightly, from 3,594,472 to 3,598.003.

By Thursday night, total registration in the 53 municipalities stood at 2,590,613 (slightly more than 72 per cent). STAE has set a modest target of registering 75 per cent of the potential electorate – with the registration period due to end on Tuesday, it is almost certain to meet this figure.

Looked at by province, the highest registration is in Tete, with 101 per cent, followed by Manica (85.8 per cent), Gaza (84.4 per cent), Cabo Delgado (83.9 per cent) and Inhambane (83.4 per cent).

The lowest registration figures are from Zambezia (57 per cent), Nampula (64.1 per cent), Maputo province (67.2 per cent) and Niassa (69.2 per cent).

In the largest of the municipalities, Maputo City, registration has only reached 71.3 per cent, while in Sofala province, which contains the opposition stronghold of Beira, the figure is 75 per cent.

Looking at the data, municipality by municipality, it seems clear that the figures for the potential electorate should have been revised upwards in several other towns – notably the Tete municipalities of Ulongue and Nhamayabue which have managed to register 222.2 and 151.8 per cent of their targets.

Other municipalities that have registered more voters than STAE believed they contained are Bilene and Mandlakazi in Gaza (119.1 and 167.9 per cent), Massinga and Quissico in Inhambane (126.8 and 170.5 per cent), Gorongosa and Nhamatanda in Sofala (115.2 and 107.8 per cent), Catandica, Gondola, Sussundenga and Manica Town in Manica (129.7, 111.9, 105.4 and 107.5 per cent), Maganja da Costa in Zambezia (139 per cent), Malema in Nampula (116.9 per cent), Mueda in Cabo Delgado (113.4 per cent), and Marrupa in Niassa (192.3 per cent).

The lowest figures are for three municipalities in Zambezia where less than half the potential electorate has registered – Gurue (35.9 per cent), Alto Molocue (44.6 per cent) and Mocuba (47.8 per cent).

The latest issue of the “Mozambique Political Process Bulletin”, produced by AWEPA (Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa) and CIP (Centre for Public Integrity), suggests that in some of the municipalities where registration is low, voters have heeded the call for a boycott from the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo.

In the port of Nacala, in Nampula province, where registration is only 61 per cent, local Renamo official Rafael Gusman has claimed that Renamo supporters are following their party’s call for a boycott.

But in the nearby district of Mozambique Island, registration is high at 81 per cent. This has led Gulamo Mamudo, who was the Renamo mayor of the island from 2003 to 2008, to claim that people who are not residents of the municipality are being brought in from the district of Mossuril to register. The other significant opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) has also made this claim – but neither has lodged any official complaint.

Unlike Renamo, the MDM is not boycotting the elections, and so could expect to collect the entire anti-Frelimo vote. But this expectation will be thwarted if significant numbers of opposition voters follow the Renamo boycott call.