A spokesperson of Mozambique’s Technical Secretariat of the Electoral Administration, (STAE), Claudio Langa has said everything is set for the start of a voter registration exercise on Monday, with the exception of some temporary accommodation centres, sheltering the victims of cyclone Idai and flooding in the country’s central regions.
The official told a media briefing on Sunday in the capital, Maputo that the process is expected to register more than seen million potential voters with work to be carried out by 15,000 brigade members.
“For logistical support, we have 600 vehicles, some of which belong to the electoral bodies and those provided by provincial and district governments. Most of these have been hired from third parties. So, we can say that 75 percent of all the vehicles were hired”, Langa said.
In addition to the vehicles, according to Langa, in the phase to deploy brigade members, STAE will use tractors and motorbikes.
For some areas, he said, boats and canoes will be used to place brigade members and the respective equipment while in other areas, brigade members will have to walk kilometres and kilometres, with their mobiles, to the voter registration posts.
“Furthermore, in this voter registration process, we’ll have 3,000 solar panel kits. Obviously, the plan for these was made far before the bad and destructive weather in the country’s central region. Possibly, presently, those 3,000 kits are likely not to be sufficient to cover areas, which – for some time, will have no access to electric power of the national grid,” said Langa.
The official explained that for this phase of the voter registration more than $64 million would be spent, not including the subsidies of brigade members, agents, operating costs of district and provincial level.
Mozambique will hold its fifth general polls since muilti-party democracy was introduced at the end of a 16-year destructive civil war between the ruling socialist Frelimo government and the apartheid- backed Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO).
CM/as/APA