On October 31, 2024, the Southern African Political Economy Series (SAPES) hosted a panel discussion focused on Mozambique’s political landscape following the October 9 national elections.
The panel included notable experts: Ibbo Mandaza, executive chairman of SAPES, Manuel de Araujo, mayor of Quelimane, Mozambique; Borges Nhamire, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria; and Zenaida Machado from Human Rights Watch.
The panel addressed reports from international observer missions and Mozambican civil society groups, which indicated the elections fell short of international standards for fairness and freedom. Although Frelimo’s candidate, Daniel Chapo, was declared the winner with 70% of the vote, opposition groups, led by Podemos’ Venâncio Mondlane, contested the results, citing electoral irregularities.
The electoral authority, which is seen as favouring the ruling party, reported Frelimo had secured 79% of parliamentary seats — the party’s largest margin since 1994, despite declining public support.
The size of the support was improbable in the eyes of many observers, both because the evidence suggests that Frelimo’s popularity has been waning over the past decade, extensive corruption, and also because of a substantial history of election irregularities stretching back over 20 years.
These last are not trivial.
The outcome of the elections in 2024 can hardly be unexpected. A comprehensive analysis of Mozambican elections by respected Mozambican expert, Joseph Hanlon, concludes that all elections in the past 25 years have been deeply flawed.
As the report comments: “Mozambique’s electoral management system would not be allowed in most democracies. There is almost total secrecy and all electoral bodies are headed and dominated by members of the ruling party, as are the courts.”
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The report analysed the past 25 years and indicated problems in all the following elections:
- 1999 presidential: Renamo’s Afonso Dhlakama gained the most votes, but results were changed at provincial level to give victory to Frelimo’s Joaquim Chissano.
- 2003 municipal: It took four days after the legal deadline for STAE (Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration), working in secret, to “correct” mistakes and “clean up” the results.
- 2004 national: Computer chaos, ballot box stuffing, first widespread invalidation of opposition votes.
- 2008 municipal: Tens of thousands of opposition ballot papers falsely invalidated with extra mark.
- 2009 presidential: The Constitutional Council (CC) acknowledged that it accepted as evidence from the National Elections Commission (CNE) secret documents which could not be seen or challenged, and which the CNE itself admitted contained major errors. The CNE in secret did not count 104 000 votes which had been stuffed in Tete and Niassa. There were at least 50 000 falsely invalidated votes.
- 2013 municipal: CC found illegal action by Gurué and Zambezia elections commissions and ordered rerun in Gurué. CNE admitted illegally doing its own count, ignoring provincial count.
- 2014 national: Law changes further politicise CNE and STAE and increase Frelimo power. More than 2100 polling stations (12% of total) with misconduct.
Again, CNE did its own illegal count.
- 2018 municipal: Blatant fraud in seven of 53 municipalities. In three municipalities CC declared Frelimo the winner even though Renamo had most votes. In Marromeu ,police confiscated ballot boxes and there was a secret count; the CC order a partial re-run, and the same thing happened. Parallel count showed Renamo won, CC said Frelimo won.
- 2019 national: CNE said it had registered 1 166 011 voters in Gaza, while census data showed there were only 836 581 voting age adults. President Filipe Nyusi publicly humiliated and forced the resignation of the respected head of the National Statistics Institute (Institute Nacional de Estatistica) for refusing to change census data to match the fraud. Nyusi won re-election with a margin of 3.2mn votes, but at least 557 000 were fraudulent. Civil society observation was restricted and a provincial observer coordinator was gunned down by a police death squad. Working together, CNE and CC twice in secret changed already published results.
- 2023 municipal: In Maputo and Matola Renamo won by large margins, but CC refused to look at the evidence, including official copies of polling station results sheets (edtais) and editas forged by elections commissions, and gave Frelimo the victory. Frelimo openly controlled both registration and polling stations. There was open false registration and preventing opposition registration. Polling station presiding officers produced false editais.
Thus, there could have scarcely any belief that 2024 would be any different and was completely endorsed by the panellists.
The experts to the SAPES Policy Dialogue highlighted the rising public unrest in Mozambique, the protests, casualties, and detentions. The government’s apparent strategy to suppress opposition efforts has heightened tensions, especially after the October 19 assassination of two senior Podemos officials.
Mondlane, facing security concerns, has since gone into hiding.
Efforts for dialogue are being supported by the Catholic bishops, who aim to mediate between stakeholders and explore the possibility of a national unity government.
Chapo has condemned the recent violence and signalled a willingness for dialogue, though he has yet to solidify his position within Frelimo. Mondlane has expressed similar openness to dialogue, while continuing to challenge the election results.
Legal actions are ongoing, potentially altering the composition of parliament in favour of the opposition.
Panellists also emphasised the risk of regional instability if Mozambique’s crisis worsens, potentially aggravating the insurgency in Cabo Delgado and causing refugee flows into neighbouring countries.
The Southern African Development Community (Sad) could play a constructive role in mediation, though Mozambique has traditionally resisted external intervention. The Mozambican election leading to dispute should come as no surprise, not merely because of the past, as should have been the case for Zimbabwe in 2023.
The citizens of Sadc countries have been rejecting their ruling parties with regularity, and the results in South Africa, Botswana, and now Mauritius demonstrate this with clarity.
Governments that fail their citizens get rejected, but the outcomes in South Africa, Botswana, and Mauritius (and maybe in Namibia in few weeks) are not signals of approval for opposition political parties, the votes are protests about the kinds of politics under which citizens must survive.
The governments that survive the protest — Mozambique and Zimbabwe — do so by gaming the electoral system and undermining state institutions.
If a country’s institutions are strong, then the Botswana and Mauritian outcome is possible, and we see losers conceding, and Sadc is saved the thorny problem of dealing with a dispute.
However, when disputes do occur, as in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, then SADC inevitably
fails in its duty.
Despite an adverse report on Zimbabwe, Sadc brushes the problem under carpet at the Summit in August by the simple device of congratulating Zimbabwe for holding “peaceful” elections: this will not be so simple a solution for Mozambican problem and the developing crisis will require much more than that.
Mozambicans already have ideas about the way forward, and the SAPES discussion concluded with a call for diplomatic engagement and compromise to address Mozambique’s internal divides and regional concerns. The solutions offered are comprehensive:
- Establish mediation talks
- The panel urged the intensification of mediation efforts, potentially through SADC or the African Union (AU), to facilitate dialogue between Frelimo and opposition groups. South Africa or Tanzania could lead the mediation, with Kenya as another acceptable option. SAPES indicated readiness to engage
SADC to support dialogue.
- Interfaith leaders, including Islamic leaders, the Episcopal Conference, Protestant Church, and civil society figures, should be empowered to continue their mediation efforts, with support from Commonwealth nations and the European Union.
- Enhance international oversight and accountability
- The international community should support a transparent review of the election process, publishing polling station results and conducting impartial investigations into alleged electoral fraud and assassinations.
- Bolster regional security and address the insurgency
- Sadc might consider a fact-finding mission to assess the potential spillover effects of Mozambique’s political crisis.
- Mozambique’s government should address local grievances fuelling the Cabo
Delgado insurgency, as perceived electoral manipulation could exacerbate these issues.
- Support legal framework for peaceful protest and opposition
- Mozambique should be urged to uphold citizens’ rights to peaceful protest, as enshrined in the constitution, and continue releasing individuals detained for protest-related activities.
- Promote political and electoral reform
- Long-term reforms are recommended to ensure an independent electoral commission, as public trust hinges on credible election outcomes.
- Safeguards against partisan influence in state institutions, including the security forces, could promote fairer elections and reduce risks of unrest in future cycles.
While regional cooperation and international pressure could help de-escalate tensions, Mozambique’s leaders and institutions bear the ultimate responsibility for building a stable and democratic nation.
However, as with Zimbabwe, Mozambique requires Sadc (and the international community) to recognise the gravity of the situation, to push for reform and not merely stability, and, above all, to realise that elections in the absence of strong institutions create problems, not solve them, and that the pressing problem throughout the region is the absence of strong institutions (not merely strong election management bodies).
- *Ibbo Mandaza and Tony Reeler are co-conveners of the Platform for Concerned Citizen (PCC)
