Nampula (Mozambique), 28 Oct (AIM) - Many voters in the northern Mozambican city of Nampula arrived at the polling stations for Wednesday's general and provincial elections hours before they opened, leading observers to believe that there will be a high turnout.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has called on all registered voters to go early to the polling stations and turn Wednesday's general and provincial elections into "a moment of festivity, peace and harmony".

The Mozambican and Brazilian governments signed an agreement on Tuesday for the rehabilitation of the Machipanda Forestry Centre (CEFLOMA) in the central province of Manica.

The Mozambican Education Ministry and the Japanese government signed an agreement in Maputo on Tuesday, under which Japan will grant about 10 million US dollars for the construction of four new secondary schools in the southern provinces of Maputo and Gaza.

The electoral authorities in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, the largest of the 11 provincial constituencies, have guaranteed that everything is in place for the 2,146 Nampula polling stations to open on time, at 07.00 on Wednesday.

Reports from AIM correspondents in central Mozambique suggest that all the conditions are in place for successful general and provincial elections on Wednesday.

Voting got off to a brisk start on Wednesday in Mozambique's general and provincial elections.

Our journalists throughout the country report a high turnout today and that at 11 am most polling stations still had long queues, often more than 50 people.

The fourth general election in Mozambique will take place on Wednesday 28 October 2009.

The Mozambican chapter of the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa) has praised the Mozambican media for its coverage of the election campaign that ran from 13 September to last Sunday.

The head of the European Union's Election Observer Mission to Mozambique, Fiona Hall, has denied that the mission is involved with or sympathetic towards any particular candidate or party standing in Wednesday's general and provincial elections.

The largest group of Mozambican election observers, the Electoral Observatory, plans to place about 1,800 observers at the polling stations for Wednesday's general and provincial elections.

The chairperson of Mozambique's National Elections Commission (CNE), Joao Leopoldo da Costa, on Tuesday urged all Mozambican voters to turn out en masse at the polling stations "to exercise your right to vote in a conscious, peaceful and orderly fashion".

Coastal erosion, which threatens to engulf Maputo's beaches over the next ten to fifty years, is the subject of a photographic exhibition coming to the capital in November.

All the polling stations for Mozambique's general and provincial elections will open on time, at 07.00 on Wednesday morning.

Mozambique has improved its position in the press freedom rankings published annually by the Paris-based press freedom body, Reporteres sans Frontieres (Reporters without Borders, RSF).

The general director of the Electoral Administration Technical Secretariat (STAE), the electoral branch of the Mozambican civil service, Felisberto Naife, confirmed on Tuesday that the Malawian authorities have refused to allow polling stations for the Mozambican general elections to be opened anywhere on Malawian soil, outside of Mozambican diplomatic buildings.

The National Elections Commission has never published the list of candidates for the elections tomorrow.

In Nicoadala, Zambézia, young supporters of the MDM feel they must be discreet in the campaigning because they fear reprisals in school.

The government of Malawi has not allowed Mozambicans to vote except in the consulates and embassies, according to Felizberto Naife at a STAE press conference this morning.