US embassy cable - 04MAPUTO267

UNCLAS MAPUTO 000267 
 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR AF/S 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, MZ, ESF, Elections 04 
SUBJECT: Mozambique: Request for FY 2004 ESF funding 
 
REF: STATE 33230 
 
1. Summary: Post requests USD 700,000 for support for 
transparency of the 2004 National Elections. This election 
support will build on successful observation and parallel 
vote tabulation coordinated by Carter Center in The November 
2003 municipal elections. End Summary. 
 
2. Mozambique's third Presidential and legislative 
elections must be held by December 2004. The December 1999 
elections were marred by lack of transparency in the 
official tabulation process. As a result, opposition parties 
did not accept the election results, leading to political 
tensions and violence, and ultimately to the death of more 
than hundred people in November 2000. Ensuring the fairness 
and transparency of the 2004 elections is of vital concern 
for political stability and development of democracy in 
Mozambique, a central MPP goal. 
 
3. ESF funding used in the 2003 local elections, through 
support to Carter Center and a consortium of local civil 
society organizations, yielded positive results. The 
presence of US-funded civil society election observers 
helped prevent electoral officials from carrying out 
documented electoral fraud in the second largest city, which 
was won by the main opposition party. The USG-funded 
parallel vote tabulation (PVT) exercise also helped right a 
mis-tabulated result in another municipality, giving the 
opposition a fifth mayoral position. Post believes that 
assisting Mozambican civil society to setup and run an 
effective election observation and PVT exercise will be a 
crucial contribution to the transparency of the process. 
 
4. Costs associated with technical assistance to set up the 
observation and PVT methodology, database, and analysis for 
the 2004 national elections are already covered by a grant 
to the Carter Center with FY 2003 ESF funding. Post requests 
USD 700,000 for the field implementation of the observation 
and PVT exercise by local organizations, to be obligated and 
managed by USAID and implemented by Mozambican partners. 
 
5. This funding would finance the recruitment, training, 
and deployment of a total of 930 observers who will monitor 
the electoral process and conduct a PVT. Besides the 
manpower, PVT costs include communication costs to transmit 
by telephone or fax collected election results from selected 
polling stations to an operations center in Maputo. 
Specifically, 500 short-term domestic observers will be 
recruited and trained throughout the country to observe the 
electoral campaign period and the voting; 30 medium-term 
domestic observers will be deployed in political hotspots 
throughout the country to monitor election-related disputes 
and conflicts four months before the election date; and an 
additional 400 observers will join the short-term observers 
on voting day to help cover 900 sampled polling stations (10 
percent of the total) around the country to collect the 
results from the tally sheets posted outside the polling 
stations to conduct the PVT. 
LA LIME