By Sizo Nkala
Mozambique is set to hold its seventh presidential and parliamentary elections on October 9 which will see 17 million registered voters choose the country’s president and 250 legislators.
The presidential elections will see the candidate of the ruling party, the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), Daniel Chapo, compete against three other candidates including the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) candidate, Ossufo Momade, Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), and independent candidate, Vanencio Mondlane.
In the 2019 elections, Frelimo secured a comfortable, if controversial, victory with the incumbent President Felipe Nyusi 73% of the vote while his party won 184 out of 250 (73.6%) of the parliamentary seats.
The election results were challenged by the opposition in court to no avail. Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since it gained its independence from Portugal in 1975. It spent the first 19 years of the independence era presiding over a one-party system while fighting a 15-year (1976-1992) civil war with Renamo rebels. The country’s first multiparty elections were held in 1994.
Barring any miracles, the 47-year-old Daniel Chapo looks set to cruise to victory and succeed President Nyusi when he completes his second term in January 2025. He will become the country’s first leader born after independence.
Chapo, a former academic and radio personality, is currently the governor of Mozambique’s Inhambane province. Frelimo enjoys firm control of state institutions such as the security forces, the judiciary, the state media, and the National Election Commission (NEC) which it has used to facilitate and protect disputed electoral victories.
In the municipal elections held on October 11, 2023, Frelimo was declared the winner in 64 out of 65 municipalities. However, the elections were marred by allegations of rigging against the NEC which was accused of changing election results in some of the municipalities in favour of the ruling party.
Local courts’ orders of vote recount in some of the municipalities were nullified by the country’s apex court, the Constitutional Council, which asserted that such orders could only come from it. The subsequent demonstrations organized by the opposition parties to protest the election results were brutally suppressed by the police. Going into the presidential elections without any reforms having been implemented can only mean a repeat of the 2023 spectacle.
With Mozambique beset by multiple crises from extreme weather events and drought to insecurity, corruption, and a sluggish economy, the incoming leader will have their work cut out for them.
Mozambique is one of the countries that are most vulnerable to extreme weather events induced by climate change. Early last year, Cyclone Freddy hit Mozambique’s central province of Zambezia, leaving a trail of destruction and killing almost 200 people, displacing 184 000 while affecting a total of 1.2 million people. Since 2019, Mozambique has been hit by 20 violent cyclones which leave a humanitarian crisis in the places they affect and strain the country’s economy.
Hence, the new leadership will need to come up with an effective plan to mitigate and adapt to the impact of extreme weather events. Another major issue is the terrorist insurgency led by the Islamic State affiliate, Ansar al Sunna, which has affected the northern province of Cabo Delgado since 2017.
To date, the violence has claimed 5 600 lives and internally displaced over one million people. The insurgency has also put about US$50 billion worth of gas extraction projects to a standstill thus depriving the country of significant revenue. The government had to enlist the services of troops from the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) and the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) to help contain the insurgency.
Although the Mozambican government claimed to have thwarted the insurgency, the insurgents staged a significant attack in the town of Macomia in May, amid SAMIM’s withdrawal from the country. This showed that the insurgency was not completely eradicated and will still be a problem for the next administration.
Perhaps the new president may consider toning down the militarised approach which has been preferred by President Nyusi in favour of a more holistic strategy that addresses the socio-economic issues driving young people to insurgency movements.
However, the main candidate, Chapo, has not outlined any specific strategy to end terrorism in his campaign, only stating that he will restore peace by all means possible.
Further, the economy is another elephant in the room. The new government will seek to maintain and improve the impressive growth levels of 4.2% and 5% achieved in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Sound monetary policy also brought inflation down from 10.3% in 2022 to 7.1%. The incoming government will want to keep the inflation rate in the single digits. However, this growth is not felt by everyone in the country with 24 million people (about 70% of the population) said to be living in poverty.
The new administration would do better to come up with policies that will enhance economic participation for the broad masses of the people to address widespread poverty. This will have to involve fighting corruption which is quite rampant in Mozambique’s public sector.
* Dr Sizo Nkala is a Research Fellow at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Africa-China Studies.
** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of The African
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