Former United States president Jimmy Carter will lead a delegation of foreign observers monitoring elections next week in Mozambique that will mark the end of President Joaquim Chissano’s 18-year rule, officials said on Tuesday.
”Mr Carter and other election monitors from his foundation will arrive this week and will be received by the chairman of the National Elections Commission (CNE),” commission spokesman Antonio Manjate told reporters.
The 60-member observer team from the Atlanta-based Carter Centre will include former US first lady Rosalynn Carter and Nicephore Soglo, the former president of Benin who led the observer mission for the first post-war polls in Sierra Leone.
The Carter Centre also monitored Mozambique’s 1999 elections, the results of which were contested by the rebel-group-turned-political-party, Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo). Renamo accused the ruling party of vote rigging.
At least 33 European monitors have arrived in Mozambique and more are on the way, Manjate said.
On December 1 and 2, about seven million voters are eligible to cast ballots in Mozambique to choose a successor to Chissano as well as 250 members of parliament.
A former Portuguese colony, Mozambique is emerging from a 16-year civil war that devastated the economy and left one million dead. – Sapa-AFP