Is Mozambique at its boiling point?
Mozambique has recently been enjoying a period of relative calm which was predicted to lead to a steady acceleration of economic growth. However, the country is now staring down the abyss of a return to widespread violence following the results of its elections on the 15th October in which the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi won an estimated 70% of the vote. The result and the margin of victory have far exceeded pre-election expectations to the extent that the fragile peace deal currently in place between FRELIMO (the governing party which has been in power since Mozambique’s independence in 1975) and RENAMO (the main opposition party which controls large swathes of the centre of the country) is at severe risk of breaking down. Furthermore, the opposition has called for the immediate cancellation and re-run of the elections due to alleged unfair practices. The prospects of a return to widespread and bloody violence are thus escalating rapidly.
RENAMO’s claim that FRELIMO has tampered with national elections has received widespread support from observing bodies such as the EU’s election observation mission. The mission said "an unlevel playing field was evident throughout the campaign….the ruling party [FRELIMO] dominated the campaign in all provinces and benefitted from the advantages of incumbency." This has included common practices such as voter intimidation at polling stations, as well as more extreme measures such as local police barring observers from various polling stations and the attempted assassination of local human rights activists. In addition, there have been reports of over 300,000 additional “ghost voters” in the southern province of Gaza, a traditional FRELIMO stronghold, which likely boosted the results of the current president.
All these ill practices have convinced the opposition party to publicly challenge the official result. Unless their request for a re-run of the election is met, it is expected that they will take their challenge beyond the realm of verbal criticisms. Consequently, the peace deal currently in place is very susceptible to being broken as RENAMO seeks to force the government into conceding that the election wasn’t conducted in a fair and equal manner. Of course, the government is unlikely to concede to such a demand in the absence of sustained international condemnation, which at present has been muted, and thus a return to widespread violence between the two political parties is probable. It is also worth noting just how intense such a conflict could potentially become depending upon circumstances as both RENAMO and FRELIMO can trace their origins to the Mozambican civil war which took place between 1975 and 1992, killing approximately one million people.
However, whilst a return to violence is appearing highly likely, we probably won’t see a return to nationwide civil war like the one experienced after Mozambique gained its independence in 1975. Instead of attracting external actors, what will likely follow if the peace deal is broken is the emergence of rapid internal divisions within Mozambique, potentially along a south-centre divide. Subsequently the government, which is based in the capital Maputo in the south, will be unable to keep control of the already existing insurgencies in the northern region of the country. This in turn would threaten what little economic stability the nation currently possesses: the northern regions, in particular the coastal province of Cabo Delgado, hold the majority of the nation’s oil reserves, which serve as the nation’s main economic driver. It is likely that attacks on foreign workers will become increasingly frequent, prompting less foreign investment: one such attack already occurred in February this year in which contractors of the United States- based Anadarko Petroleum Corp were killed and injured. This in turn would stunt and likely reverse what little economic progress is currently being made.
Consequently, Mozambique is on the brink, in both an economic and humanitarian sense. If no mutually acceptable solution to the election impasse can be found soon it seems inevitable that the current peace deal between FRELIMO and RENAMO will cease. Subsequent widespread violence and economic turmoil would likely follow and thus the next steps taken by both sides will weigh heavy on the country’s future. We will soon find out if Mozambique will come down from the boil or if it is about to blow.
