Politics of Mozambique

Clouds huddled over the skies of Maputo. Scarcely had anyone expected heavy rains that evening as the forecast had predicted a hot and humid day like so many of the previous weeks.

It was the perfect day for a presidential inauguration where Daniel Chapo would finally assume office after a tempestuous, violent and much contested election. Final preparatives were being made as the dignatories arrived and took their seats. The reporters from the local press jostled for a privileged position hoping to score an interview or two.

Outside the city, in the suburban localities the slayings continued. It was only during the evening and after the ceremony had concluded that reports began to emerge of even more bloodshed. All sensitivity to death seems to have been lost. In November, the UIR (a kind of specialized armed unit) fired at demonstrators still with some hesitation and fearful of international condemnation. That seems to be gone now. Anyone who is unlucky may be shot in cold blood and not a feather is ruffled.

The dark clouds are more than anything symbolic of the disjoint between the peoples right for self-determination and the imposition of an order by a cruel regime. It is a day that will go down in the history of this continent; a sign that perhaps wars cannot be ended by dialog. A sobering reminder that guns are fought with other guns.

As the ceremony wound down and the guests ceremoniously left the venue, their appeared to be a palpable fear in the air that a conflict had just begun in Mozambique. It is a new type of war in which the enemy is faceless, does not don any particular uniform or identify with any color.

Such is a very real possibility considering that the fabric of Mozambican society is diverse. The elections were able to cut transversally across languages, regions and economic classes. What unites Mozambicans now is the common feeling of betrayal and the will to remove the aggressor.

Those changes will not be seen in the quiet and calm avenues of Ponta Vermelha, where soldiers armed to the teeth protect the Presidency from marauders, as the Administration views them. Those battles, of a silent and undeclared war, will be waged in the districts and the villages; grey zone operations which may easily go out of hand.

FRELIMO has established a formidable institution over the last 50 years. It has utilized a variety of subversive techniques to influence public opinion and the press. It relies on information and disinformation to achieve control; selling promises of a better tomorrow. The state is poorly equipped in terms of ordnance and outside the capital, firepower is not used to establish control.

How its administrators, handpicked and appointed in the poorest and deprived districts of the country will fare is cast in doubt should a “people’s war” erupt. There would be no hope of restraint and the entire house of cards would come tumbling down. After all, that is how the war of independence started and the Portuguese driven out in 1974.

It must have been the tech titan of Apple who once said that creation was a messy affair. That view has been especially true of Mozambique since October’s presidential elections. The overwhelming consensus, at least by the standards of social media today, is that the results do not corroborate the will of the people.

In a game of cat and mouse now approaching two months, the leader of the opposition; in reality an independent candidate who has often played political musical chairs has held the country at ransom. A man of the people, a president already in some circles, he has been able to spur the energy of a youthful and livid population into various forms civil unrest and disobedience. His demands are no less than electoral truth.

There is much at stake, Mozambique is an economy that should be raking in billions of dollars from mineral exports, energy and extensive transportation networks, yet it is one of the poorest countries in Africa. The encumbrance to the economy and the situation of the politicians being at loggerheads with each other has many worried. It is not an economy that can afford to hunker, shut down and survive a bad political storm – “our daily bread” is not only recited but lived in the flesh each day.

All eyes are on the Constitutional Court, a supreme court that now has the responsibility of determining the final results. The announcement could either break or make the country. Indications hitherto do not suggest that the fully captured institution will declare results favourable to the public.

When countries are at critical junctures, they have the most likelihood of breaking from the past. That detail was revealed early on by Venancio Mondlane when he embarked on his “Twenty Five Days of Terror” crusade to overthrow FRELIMO which has been in power for almost 50 years.

FRELIMO once the political starling of the former Portuguese colony established itself into power in 1975. The watershed for that was the Carnation Revolution of the previous year and the negotiated handover of the colonies to liberation movements. Except for a few decades of stellar GDP growth, development of the country has been held by extractive institutions which have been moulded to serve a nascent elite.

History tells us that critical junctures are far more determinant of changes, either positive or negative. This is so because changes in other circumstances are often thwarted by those who are wealthy or wield political power and are fearful of losing their place. They will and can do everything to maintain the yoke of power.

The people of Mozambique wait anxiously for the results to be announced on 23rd December.