Politics

Election campaign begins in Mozambique ahead of presidential election

Published

2 weeks ago

September 4, 2024

Political campaigns for the presidential election to succeed Filipe Nyusi in Mozambique are set to begin this week with four contenders competing for the presidency out of the at least 37 political parties and association movements vying for seats.

In the general election scheduled for October 9, over 17 million voters are enrolled to cast ballots, with over 300,000 of those voters being registered overseas.

Daniel Chapo is a candidate for the Frelimo party, which is in power and has the support of the government apparatus.

Venâncio Mondlane is running as an independent, Lutero Simango is representing the MDM, and Ossufo Momade is the primary opposition candidate for Renamo.

Throughout the past 20 years, the nation has had elections on schedule, which is a change from its chaotic past. Because of the civil war and, more lately, the northern insurgency, it has been forced to run with its eyes always on the rear.

When he signed the amended electoral legislation into law last week, outgoing President Nyusi informed the nation that this would be the first election in three decades that Mozambicans would not be watching an armed party.

He made it apparent that the nation intended the election campaign to inspire all voters to cast their ballots for the candidate and party of their choice, citing it as “the fruit of the peace and reconciliation” that they had built together as brothers.

According to the new election law, poll workers who fabricate election results might spend up to two years in prison. Additionally, the statute specifies that district judges would no longer be able to mandate vote recounts. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) and the Constitutional Council currently hold exclusive authority over this.

Additionally, it eliminates all restrictions on the journalists’ and observers’ attendance throughout every phase of the vote count, which was not the case previously.

Indicating his party’s desire to stay in power, 47-year-old Daniel Francisco Chapo promised, if elected president on October 9, to combat corruption by “digitalising state services.”

“We need to educate society in honesty. This will ensure that we don’t have corrupt people. Society needs ethical and moral values,” Mr Chapo told STV in an interview last week.

The President is elected via a two-round election system while the 250 members of the Assembly of the Republic are elected using proportional representation in eleven multi-member constituencies based on the country’s regions, as well as first-past-the-post in two single-member seats representing Mozambican residents living in Africa and Europe.

Related Topics:Election campaign Featured Mozambique

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Politics

Ghanian opposition protests, demands audit of voters register

Published

10 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Ghana’s major opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party protested statewide on Tuesday, seeking an independent forensic audit to clean up the voter register for free and fair elections.

NDC leaders said the election commission secretly relocated voters to various voting sites, undermining the register.

In red and black, thousands of supporters marched through Accra’s main streets, blasting reggae and campaign music and calling on international bodies, Ghana’s peace council, and religious and civil society groups to intervene. Protest leaders petitioned parliament and the Accra electoral agency. Ghana’s other 15 regions also saw protests, local media said.

Protester Kwame Acheampong, 68, told Reuters in Akan that his registration had been moved from the capital to Tamale. He asked, “How can I vote in Tamale?”

Meanwhile, the electoral commission claims the flaws were fixed. It suspended a northern Pusiga district director in August for “using his credentials to transfer voters without their knowledge.” Ghana is one of Africa’s most stable democracies, although eight people died in the last election, which was marred by opposition claims that the government unjustly influenced the vote, which it rejected.

Allegations of irregularities tarnish the electoral authorities. Afrobarometer’s July survey found Ghana’s election commission’s trust at an all-time low since confidence polls began in 1999. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, NDC chairman, told demonstrators he wanted “transparent elections.”

Ghana will have general elections for president and parliamentarians on December 7, 2024. President Nana Akufo-Addo cannot run again due to term limits after eight years. Old NDC president John Dramani Mahama will face New Patriotic Party Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia in the election.

The President of Ghana is elected in two rounds, while 275 MPs are elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting.

Politics

South Sudan ready to resume pumping oil through Sudan

Published

15 hours ago

September 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

According to South Sudan’s finance minister and the president’s office, progress has been made in getting South Sudan and Sudan to resume supplying crude oil through a pipeline that goes to a port in their neighbourhood.

South Sudan depends heavily on its oil exports for its income, and Sudan keeps a portion of the oil as a transit fee.

The devastation resulting from a fight between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces forced the closure of the major pipeline that transported oil from South Sudan via Sudan for export in February. According to observers, the stoppage has caused food prices in Sudan, where millions of people suffer from acute hunger, to rise. The damage is likely to cause major environmental degradation.

“Sudanese engineers have accomplished the necessary technical preparations for the resumption of oil production,” South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s office said in a statement late on Monday after a meeting in Juba between Kiir and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

“Engineers from South Sudan are expected to visit Sudan in the coming weeks to familiarise themselves with the readiness of the facilities to jump-start production.”

“There has been a breakthrough, and (news of) it will come to the public very soon,” South Sudan’s Finance Minister Marial Dongrin Ater told a news conference late on Monday.
Burhan’s office said the two sides would develop an operational plan to restart oil flows.

Due to intercommunal violence, South Sudan’s economy has been under strain recently. Since the civil war that lasted from 2013 to 2018, revenue from crude oil exports has decreased, and more recently, export disruptions have occurred because of the conflict in neighbouring Sudan.

Following its independence from Khartoum in 2011, South Sudan began exporting roughly 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day through Sudan, following a formula that took the majority of the country’s oil production with it.

Before the civil war, South Sudan produced between 350,000 and 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day at its highest point.