The law setting up the CNE is clear: it states that CNE members work for the Commission "in an exclusive regime" - meaning that they are not allowed to undertake any other form of paid employment.
Furthermore, the law states that "members of the CNE cannot be prejudiced in their career, in their employment and other rights" because of the duties they exercise in the commission. At the end of their term of office, "CNE members automatically resume the positions they held at the date of taking office".
In other words, their old jobs remain open for them, so that they can resume their professional career after their stint (normally five years) on the CNE. These provisions only make sense on the assumption that, once sworn into office, the CNE members cease their earlier employment.
Yet CNE chairman Joao Leopoldo da Costa, three months after his appointment to the CNE, is still the Vice-Chancellor of one of the country's private universities, ISCTEM (Mozambican Higher Institute of Science and Technology), and CNE spokesperson Juvenal Bucuane remains the general secretary of the Association of Mozambican Writers. Indeed, there has been no announcement that any of the CNE members have left their previous jobs.
According to the latest issue of the weekly paper "O Pais", Costa claims that the law cannot be applied "to the letter", and should only be invoked in cases where there is a direct conflict of interests between the CNE and the other institutions where the CNE members work.
But the call for a full-time CNE has nothing to do with any possible conflict of interests between the electoral bodies and other institutions. It is a demand for a body which can concentrate all its attentions on organizing elections, rather than slotting CNE duties into a pre-existing agenda.
"O Pais" visited Costa's ISCTEM office last week in an attempt to understand how he can aanage to run a university and the CNE at the same time. It found that Costa reserves a certain period to visit the CNE, where he signs documents and speaks with those who with to speak to him about electoral matters.
No doubt he is doing his best - but "O Pais" noted "he has two concerns - the CNE and ISCTEM. And this is what the law wanted to avoid by demanding an exclusive employment regime." ~
SOURCE: AIM
