Mozambican nationals living in South Africa are given an opportunity to vote in that country’s national elections to be held later in 2019. Voter registration is underway in many villages of Mpumalanga, Limpopo and will continue until the end of May.
However, undocumented nationals have blamed both governments for not helping them to be naturalised despite being in the country for decades.
Hundreds of Mozambican nationals sought refuge in Mpumalanga following the civil war fought between 1977 and 1992. Many were killed and hundreds were displaced. Mozambicans fled to neighbouring countries as asylum seekers.
Kildare village in the Bushbuckridge municipality was amongst some of the areas. Christina Ndlovu arrived in the country about two decades ago. She says despite her efforts to register to vote, the government is not helping her to be naturalised as a South African citizen.
“If we were registering to get SA ID’s, we should have received them because it’s not for the first time to register. We have not seen any results, but we hope at the end things will be resolved.”
Mozambique national, Maria Ndlovu, says that their children cannot get birth certificates or go to school because the parents don’t have IDs.
“We don’t see anything, we voting because we have been struggling for too long here to get IDs. Even our children can’t go to school here; others managed to go to school and passed their matric, but they can’t get work because they don’t have certificates and IDs.”
However, this is an opportunity to vote. Mozambican Nationals Community leader, Alexandre Matsuve, says that people can use their Mozambican IDs or passports to vote.
“One must take your Mozambican ID, passport; is not the citizen of another country, only Mozambican. Even if you have an ID or passport, you must come to register, because the government, they know that issue is too much, people are not having documents.”
The registered will check their names on the voters roll on the first week of June 2019.
