Protesters from the Maxaquene neighborhood confront Mozambican security forces as they demonstrate in Maputo on Oct. 24.ALFREDO ZUNIGA/AFP/Getty Images
Mozambique’s ruling party has extended its half-century monopoly on political power, winning a landslide victory in official results of an election tainted by killings and vote-rigging allegations.
The party, Frelimo, became the latest of southern Africa’s postcolonial liberation parties to prolong its electoral dominance. Almost all of the parties that took power in the region between the 1970s and 1990s are still fully entrenched in office, from Angola to Zimbabwe.
According to the results announced by Mozambique authorities on Thursday, Frelimo boosted its parliamentary majority to 195 of the 250 seats, giving it control of more than three-quarters of the chamber – enough for it to change the constitution unilaterally if it wants. Its presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, won nearly 71 per cent of the vote.
But in a sign of growing disillusionment with the electoral process, only 43 per cent of the 17 million registered voters cast ballots in the election, one of the lowest turnout rates since the end of Mozambique’s civil war in 1992.
Election observers from the European Union said there were “irregularities” in the vote counting, including “unjustified alteration of election results at polling station and district level” – essentially an accusation of vote-rigging. A group of Catholic bishops said the election was marked by “grand fraud” and ballot-box stuffing.
Mozambique has vast natural-gas resources, but it has suffered decades of poverty and widespread corruption. More recently it has endured a devastating insurgency in its northern province, Cabo Delgado, where hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
Despite their often poor economic performances, the liberation parties of southern Africa have banded together to support each other. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa sparked controversy by issuing congratulations to Frelimo before Mozambique’s election results were even announced.
Protesters took to the streets of several towns and cities on Thursday to demonstrate against the official results. Police responded with tear gas, and at least two people were reportedly shot dead in a town near the capital, Maputo, according to human-rights activists. Earlier protests this week had also led to several deaths and dozens of arrests.
Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, who was supported by the opposition Podemos party, finished second in the official presidential results with 20 per cent of the vote. He rejected the official results and called for a two-day general strike on Thursday and Friday to protest the conduct of the election and to honour two of his senior officials who were killed last weekend.
Podemos, formed by dissenting members of Frelimo, has emerged as one of the most popular rivals to Frelimo in many years. The party and Mr. Mondlane have used social media to forge links with Mozambique’s large population of discontented young people.
After the election and the two killings, Mr. Mondlane said he went into hiding because of risks to his life. His legal adviser, Elvino Dias, who had been preparing a legal challenge to the election results, and a Podemos spokesperson, Paulo Guambe, were shot dead by unidentified assailants while they were driving in Maputo last weekend. Mr. Mondlane alleged that the Mozambican security forces were responsible for the killings.
Borges Nhamirre, an analyst with the Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, said the latest events are proof that the existence of regular multiparty elections is not sufficient to ensure democracy in Mozambique.
“The manipulation of elections by electoral management bodies in favour of the ruling party is crippling democracy, eroding the credibility of institutions and generating postelection violence,” Mr. Nhamirre said in a published commentary this week.
“The election happened on an uneven political playing field that favoured Frelimo, with the country’s mainstream media giving ruling party candidates more airtime,” he said. “Such issues hinder free and fair elections and violate Mozambique’s Constitution [and] electoral laws.”
A survey by the polling agency Afrobarometer in 2022 found that half of respondents said the country’s elections do not enable voters to remove poorly performing leaders from office. Trust in parliamentarians has fallen to its lowest point in two decades, the survey found.
Nicolas Delaunay, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, noted that the election protests earlier this week had been met by a violent police crackdown that in some cases included the use of live bullets. This signals that the authorities “won’t allow people to express much frustration” about the electoral process or the political killings, he said.