On August 8, the Mozambican parliament decided to strip district courts of their autonomy to order vote recounts in electoral disputes. This position is seen by the Mais Integridade electoral consortium as a democratic step backwards, as well as prejudicing the upcoming elections on October 9.

In Mais Integridade's view, the changes implemented in the electoral package could jeopardize the transparency of the ballot and, therefore, there is no support for withdrawing that competence from the judicial courts.

"For us, this position by the Assembly of the Republic is wrong and does not contribute to the transparency of the electoral process," said Edson Cortês, President of the consortium. He noted that it was a senseless decision "especially after the sad spectacles we saw in last year's local elections".

For the consortium, the experience of past elections has led to greater expectations of trying to make electoral processes more transparent, especially given the "regrettable" stances of the National Electoral Commission and the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration, sponsored by the Constitutional Council.

"We, as a Consortium, are very doubtful that there will be transparency in the elections. And what's even more ridiculous is that the largest opposition party, Renamo, is also approving this measure, showing the increasingly dangerous marriage with Frelimo," he said.

He promised to work to show that the decision taken "hurts" electoral transparency.

"As a consortium, we will do everything we can to continue advocating and perhaps take the examples that will come out of these elections to show that this one-off revision of electoral legislation has been detrimental to the transparency of the electoral process," he said.