EISA Mozambique programme activities 2004

Country specific activities

These are activities that are contained in a project which was developed to assist the electoral stakeholders in Mozambique. The project was developed against the background of the election disputes of the 1992 and 1999 general elections in the country. As result the project activities focused on election-related conflict management. The project activities included, inter alia:

• Training of representatives of CNE, CSOs and political parties on democracy, elections and conflict. A train of trainers course was held and the trainers subsequently trained in all the ten provinces, targeting representatives of local CSOs, electoral officials and political parties;
• Facilitation of discussions with similar stakeholders around the conflict management mechanism. An exploratory meeting was held, with the participation of experts from South Africa who came to share their experiences in setting up an election-related conflict management mechanism in their own country. This was well-received and follow-up meetings are planned; and
• Assisting CSOs in monitoring the process: EISA has been involved since its inception with an initiative of a group of NGOs in Mozambique which established an Electoral Observatory. With the technical support of EISA, the Electoral Observatory has conducted Parallel Vote Tabulation in two elections (the 2003 local elections and 2004 general elections). In both instances the success of the initiative was indicated by the very low variance between official election results and the PVT's.

Voting behaviour survey

EISA published a report of the survey on Voting Behaviour in Mozambique for the 2004 General Elections, conducted by EISA in partnership with Centre for Population Studies (CEP) from Eduardo Mondlane University in 2005 under the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP). The study was made possible with the financial support of Austria Cooperation for Development through Austria Institute for Cooperation North-South.

The report consists of five sections: After a brief description of the methodology used, the first section presents some findings on the socio-economic perceptions of voters. This is followed by a section on access to information, the role of the media and citizen awareness levels of, and interest in, politics. The third section examines the role played by Mozambican institutions and social networks in forming political opinion among the electorate. The fourth section presents an assessment of the democratic system by the voters and finally, the fifth section analyses voting behaviour and provides an evaluation of the electoral process in Mozambique.

Regional Activities

These are activates which are contained in EISA regional projects and implemented at the national level. The office has therefore been tasked to undertake these activities in Mozambique. They include:

• Dissemination of the regional Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation (PEMMO). EISA organised a national launch of PEMMO in its Portuguese version and distributed it widely to election stakeholders. EISA also trained domestic observers on how to use the PEMMO to assess the election in Mozambique. Furthermore EISA distributed the principles to all domestic and international election observers during the 2004.
• Promoting fairness of the electoral process. EISA in cooperation with the Centre for Democracy and Development Studies (CEDE) organised a conference on Electoral Justice and Equity. A report including all the proceedings will be published shortly. It is anticipated that this report will feed into the debate on electoral reforms.
• Monitoring the use of public resources during elections A regional project aimed at raising the awareness of the use of public resources for campaign purposes was piloted in Mozambique. 8 EISA field monitors administered a questionnaire intended to collect raw data on the issue of the (mis)use of state resources for electioneering purposes. A report will be written up and results presented to a regional workshop to be convened soon.
• EISA produced a handbook on electoral legislation and an Observer's Guide, both of which were widely used by EOMs during the 2004 elections.
• EISA deployed 34 observers in an Electoral Observer Mission to the 2004 elections.