Mozambique’s mid-life crisis
After 50 Years of independence in Mozambique, what and how to celebrate?
Popular demonstration on a busy avenue in the center of Maputo, 22 November 2024. Image © Marílio Wane.
Mozambique is preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence, achieved on June 25, 1975, amid an atmosphere of political tension that brings with it a number of decisive questions about the future direction of the country. The moment coincides with the independence of the other former Portuguese colonies in Africa in the same year, reflecting the articulated nature of the anticolonial resistance in these countries, in the face of a common enemy and after a decade of armed struggle. Another common aspect is that, despite the enormous geographical distances and territorial discontinuity, the different liberation movements in this group of nations were in dialogue with each other, while at the same time establishing external alliances aligned with the socialist bloc, in the context of the Cold War. As a result, once liberation had been won, the former movements set up one-party regimes of Marxist-Leninist inspiration, which were in force until the early 1990s, when they began to adopt liberal democracy regimes due to the structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF.
The occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of the so-called Lusophone Africa therefore presents an inevitable opportunity for reflection and stocktaking of the historical experience, in each of the countries and together. In addition to the official celebrations, there will certainly also be artistic events, academic seminars, and, possibly, protests, since there is no escaping the harsh reality of the appalling living conditions in this group of nations, which are among the most impoverished in the world. Although, to a large extent, the political history of the PALOPs follows a more or less common script, individually, the developments have taken place according to their own idiosyncrasies, with the political-institutional instability in some of them standing out. This is the case of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique, whose recent post-election crisis has drawn the attention of the world and more specifically the region, due to its structural elements, which reflect broader problems in the region.
The immediate cause of the political crisis was the electoral process in October 2024, which, for the seventh time, gave victory to the Frelimo party, amid various accusations and indications of fraud. In fact, this is a recurring situation that has been widely recorded and documented since the first multiparty elections in 1994. What is new is the fact that this time, the challenge has come not only from the opposition, but from various sectors of civil society and even international organizations, which have been somewhat complacent in the face of blatant situations. For example, in a report released at the end of January, the European Union pointed to the occurrence of “irregularities and discrepancies that affect the integrity of the electoral process and results in the country.” The background to these recurring accusations of electoral fraud is the fact that, due to a certain inertia of history, the Frelimo party has almost absolute control over state institutions, since it has been in power since independence. In this way, it has acquired the ability to instrumentalize them in its favor, making the political contest manifestly unequal. This “inertia” results from the fact that, since independence and over the following decades, the Frelimo regime has managed to produce a considerable consensus among the masses, anchored in the legitimacy acquired through the struggle for independence.
The crisis began immediately after the first official announcement of the results when Venâncio Mondlane, the main opposition candidate, called for a series of protests on a scale never before seen in the country. Questions of merit aside, and at a deeper level of analysis, the widespread contestation of the election results can be interpreted as the breakdown of this consensus, signaling the divorce between the former party-state and broad sectors of society. Not only the opposing demonstrations, but above all, the disproportionate police repression that was observed in response has been the emblematic image of the critical political moment experienced in the country. Even more symbolic of this “divorce” was the inauguration ceremony of the new president, Daniel Chapo, which was negatively marked by the absence of the usual popular participation. Due to the high-voltage atmosphere on the day of the inauguration (January 15), Independence Square had to be cordoned off, allegedly for security reasons. While Chapo was giving his speech, some demonstrators confronted the police in the area around the square, with one death and scenes of police violence that went viral around the world.
Another unprecedented aspect that characterized the event was the absence of foreign representations at the highest level, especially from historical allies such as Angola, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Namibia, and Portugal, among others. These absences did not go unnoticed by the media and were exploited by the regime’s opponents as a sign of the international embarrassment caused by the controversial nature of the elections. Particularly in Portugal, where the parliament did not even recommend the presence of the president of the republic or the prime minister, as has been customary. For the rest, only South Africa, the closest ally in the region, and Guinea-Bissau, which is also experiencing a political-institutional crisis, were represented by their heads of state.
A new old government at a crossroads
Faced with the impasse, various voices from Mozambican civil society have suggested that the new government take a series of actions to overcome the crisis. However, these expectations—such as the formation of an inclusive, unified government and dialogue with the main opposition leader—have not been met. On the contrary, the signals emitted by the new leader (who is also president of the party) point to the strengthening of the hegemonic power of Frelimo, whose cadres make up all the ministries, added to the absolute majority in parliament, also strengthened by the election results.
In contrast to the relative social isolation of the ruling party, Mondlane (currently in the process of founding his own party) has continued his internal and external mobilization work, even after the self-exile he imposed after the October elections and his triumphant return to the country’s capital in January. On that occasion, he proclaimed himself “president of the republic” and began issuing “presidential decrees” from his “parallel government” as a way of pressuring the government to adopt measures that enjoy broad popular support but defy the institutional order.
Legal debates aside, the fact is that many of these “decrees” were temporarily accepted by a large part of the population, generating situations of social tension and political violence. On the one hand, the government categorized these acts as “vandalism,” and on the other, the opposition claimed their legitimacy as a form of civil disobedience in the face of the difficult living conditions imposed by an allegedly illegitimate government. The fact is that the first few months of the year have seen a high degree of social instability, marked by traffic bans in various parts of the country, the destruction of public and private infrastructure, work and trade stoppages, and more, which have been met with harsh police repression.
For a country with a fragile economy, institutions and infrastructure, maintaining such a state of affairs could easily lead to a situation of ungovernability, which in turn raises another type of debate: Who would be the beneficiaries of such instability. In this sense, there are widespread accusations of Mondlane being at the service of foreign interests, based on his ideological alignment with right-wing and even far-right sectors of the world. Added together, these suspicions are reminiscent of the phenomenon of “color revolutions,” such as the so-called Arab Spring, which hit countries in the north of the continent in the 2010s. And in this vein, the use of social networks as their main communication and mobilization tool is another element of suspicion that Mozambique is repeating the same strategy of destabilizing political regimes in the Global South in favor of Western interests.
What and how?
In any case, the pressures exerted by external interests have always been part of the equation for exercising power, most acutely in the most economically dependent nations. So the big question is how governments react and interact in the face of this reality, taking into account their own interests as sovereign states and, above all, from the point of view of the living conditions of the population. From the latter point of view, the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of independence necessarily begs the question: What should we celebrate? In other words, it means questioning what benefits were objectively brought to society as a whole as a result of political emancipation. Although we recognize the constraints imposed by an oppressive world economic order that is unfavorable to the countries of the Global South, local governments cannot be absolved of responsibility for the well-being of their peoples. And among the various factors explaining their absence in countries like Mozambique, the natural wear and tear generated by five decades of power exercised uninterruptedly by a single political force is certainly one of the most important.
Recognizing this reality becomes particularly relevant at a time when the winds of the Sahel are blowing from the north of the continent, demanding liberation from neocolonialist domination, exercised by the former Western imperialist powers in collusion with Africa’s conservative elites. And it is precisely this last element of the equation that should receive special attention in the public debate of African societies, with regard to the internal political dynamics that make neocolonialism possible. If, on the one hand, Ibrahim Traoré’s growing popularity among African youth signals the emergence of a new political consciousness, on the other hand, it can be seen as a potential threat to the already old postcolonial power structures. This is the case in the continent’s southernmost region, where the leading parties of the liberation movements—Frelimo, MPLA, ANC, ZANU-PF, SWAPO, historically allied—are experiencing an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy due to their forced longevity.
In addition to the question of what, it is also important to reflect on how to celebrate the milestone of 50 years of liberation from colonial rule. Since official preparations have already begun, the situation of crisis and instability brings with it the broader issue of social inclusion. In other words, the challenge is to ensure that the moment of celebration is meaningful for the whole of society, something that is difficult given the fragmented state of the social fabric today. More than ever, the need for open and inclusive dialogue has become imperative, not just for the specific moment of the intended celebration on June 25, 2025, but as a tool to enable solid long-term prospects for the future. In other words, the great challenge facing Mozambican society lies in the capacity of the historically authoritarian and centralized political system to promote greater participation and inclusion of civil society in decision-making processes for the collective construction of the nation’s destiny.
