General Elections, 9 October 2024

Floods, March 2024 

On 24 March 2024, torrential rain over Maputo resulted in significant flooding. The rainfall occurred only 10 days after hurricane Filipo had caused extensive damage (Filipo affected over 57,000 people) (UN OHCA 2024; Ogao 2024). More than 15mm of rain was registered in 24 hours. The capacity of rivers and drainage systems had been severely compromised by Filipo, making neighbourhoods near the rivers particularly vulnerable. Eight roads in Maputo city were declared inaccessible, and around 15,000 people across different cities were affected due to the electric grid going down. This led to further risks, namely electrocution from wires and other electronic equipment ending up on the streets (IFRC 2024).  

In total, about 93,240 people were affected by the heavy rains, with at least five deceased and three injured. 11,133 houses were flooded and 99 were totally destroyed, while at least 19 schools were impacted (UN OCHA 2024).  

Impact on the electoral process 

Many evacuated residents sought shelter in schools which had been designated as voter registration centres and registration brigade headquarters (CIP 2024). Some schools were engulfed by flood water, leading to below acceptable working conditions for electoral staff. As a result, at least 96 registration centres and their staff in Maputo were forced to close. Damaged roads in the Manica province limited electoral authorities' ability to deliver materials to polling stations (LUSA 2024).  

The president of the election commission in Manica announced that they were “training for greater flexibility” to avoid issues with registration (Jequete 2024). Election observers expressed concern about the credibility of voter registration, due to discrepancies between the population and the voter registers (EU EOM 2024). Besides the floods, terrorism was also recognized as a challenge during the voter registration period.(Jequete 2024). 

Mozambique’s National Electoral Commission (CNE) reported voter turnout as being 43 per cent (Kupemba and Tembe 2024). This is lower than the 51.41 per cent turnout recorded for 2019 (International IDEA n.d.).