Elections in Mozambique: Chronicles of a Crisis Foretold
Photo Credit: REUTERS - Siphiwe Sibeko
Ruling parties in Southern Africa will probably remember 2024 as an annus horribilis.
Elections in 2024 saw the region’s former liberation movements losing support (Namibia), losing their absolute majority (South Africa), or even being defeated by the opposition (Botswana), shaking the post-independence status quo in an unprecedented way.
This trend was confirmed by Mozambique’s October 9 election for the presidency, which resulted in the largest challenge to the ruling Frelimo party since the country’s independence from Portugal in 1975.
Following the vote, waves of protests erupted from October 21 and continued until the inauguration of the new President and Frelimo’s candidate, Daniel Chapo, on January 15. These were the country’s most protracted and deadliest protests in thirty years, with over 300 people killed in clashes with security forces. Post-election disruption to economic activity caused an estimated shortfall in revenue at 3% of GDP and the economy fell by 4.87% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2024. Reports of massive fraud further undermined the credibility of the electoral process and the legitimacy of national institutions.
Within the region, the Mozambican crisis might serve as a warning for Angola’s ruling MPLA party, which, in 2022, lost its two-third majority for the first time since Angola’s independence in 1975 and is expected to face even more competitive elections in 2027, amid rising social discontent over economic hardship.
In Mozambique, the October 9 elections marked a seismic change to the status quo, in a two-party system so far dominated by Frelimo and Renamo ─ the two former liberation movements, which fought against each in the country’s civil war (1977-1992, with violence flaring up again from 2013 to 2016). In a landmark reconfiguration of the opposition, Renamo was outpaced by the independent presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, a charismatic Pentecostal pastor, former television commentator, and former Renamo member. In the October 2023 municipal elections, Mondlane ran as Renamo’s candidate for the position of Maputo’s mayor but then left the party due to disagreements with its leadership.
As he drained votes from Renamo, Mondlane placed second in the high-stakes presidential elections in a country with a strongly presidential form of government. Definitive results were released by the Constitutional Council ruling 24/CC/2024 of December 22, which declared petitions filed inadmissible and conducted an ex officio verification of the provisional results proclaimed by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) on October 24.
Frelimo’s candidate, Daniel Chapo, was elected President with 65.17% of votes, followed by Mondlane (24.19%), Renamo’s leader, Ossufu Momade (6.62%), and Lutero Simango, the leader of the minor opposition Movimento Democrático de Moçambique (MDM) with 4.02%. Mondlane was initially supported by the Coligação Aliança Democrática (CAD) coalition, which was, however barred from running the legislative and provincial elections after the Constitutional Council ruling 10/CC/2024 of July 31 acknowledged that the coalition failed to register for electoral purposes. Mondlane then rallied with the Povo Otimista para o Desenvolvimento de Moçambique (Podemos) party, which backed him as an independent candidate to the presidential elections.
Founded just ahead of the 2019 elections, Podemos entered Parliament for the first time after the 2024 elections, also becoming the main opposition party with 43 out of 250 seats, surpassing Renamo, which won 28 seats. Meanwhile, Frelimo retained its two-thirds majority with 171 seats.
The opposition denounced fraud and organized protests, which also led to unrest, roadblocks, looting, and acts of vandalism. The institutional response to the crisis appeared weak. Then-President Filipe Nyusi addressed the nation for the first time in a televised speech in mid-November, calling for political dialogue, which has however excluded Mondlane. Frelimo’s members made contradictory statements, likely signaling fragmentation within the ruling party. The opposition and civil society denounced police brutality and the African Union and the international community (including the European Union, single European countries, United States, Canada) expressed concern over the outbreak of violence, particularly following the political assassination of two Podemos affiliates under unclear circumstances.
"The Mozambican crisis can be seen as the latest example highlighting the limitations of formal elections, which are not only a manifestation of incomplete constitutional transitions but also potential obstacles to the path of democratic consolidation.”
The Constitutional Council, the electoral judge of last resort, came under immense pressure. On several occasions, Mondlane directly addressed the President of the Constitutional Council in live social media broadcasts, asserting that she was personally responsible for ensuring electoral justice—despite the fact that the validation of results is a collective decision of the Council. He warned, "what will happen from Monday [the day of the proclamation of the final results] if the electoral truth is not respected will depend on the words of the President of the Constitutional Council. Her words can give or take life."
Although demonstrations were initially triggered by electoral irregularities, they soon morphed into broader protests revealing deep-seated socio-economic and political grievances. Hardship – compounded by external shocks, including the pandemic, international monetary tightening, and international conflicts, resulting into rising inflation – has been a key driver of social discontent. In a country where the proportion of people living below the poverty line has surged sharply over the past decade to more than 65% of the population, frustration has been mounting.
Additionally, the government’s ability to provide essential public services and pay public employees’ salaries has been severely strained due to high levels of public debt and the lingering effects of the 2016 hidden debt scandal, in which state-owned companies illicitly borrowed $2 billion in undisclosed loans. Mondlane has vocally denounced the misconduct of the political elite—which he refers to as the “black colonizer”—and accused them of embezzling national resources to the expenses of the population. His populist rhetoric strongly resonates with the frustrations of those most affected by worsening living conditions: urban youth from lower-income backgrounds, in a country where the average age is just seventeen.
However, dissatisfaction with the establishment seems to go beyond Mondlane’s powerbase, spreading also to Frelimo's electorate, hoping for a comprehensive restructuring of the party. The election of a new president—Daniel Chapo, who succeeds Filipe Nyusi after he reached the constitutional two-term limit—is unlikely to be enough to meet widespread demands for change, despite Chapo representing a new generation of Frelimo leadership (he is the first president born after independence).
Mistrust in the élites transposed to the institutional level. Mozambican institutions themselves are accused of misappropriation of public funds, in a political system characterized by blurred lines between the party and the State. Institutional representatives are elected in elections that have been historically tainted by fraud, since the first multiparty elections in 1994. The latest elections were no exception, with irregularities affecting every stage of the process – as noted in the EU Election Observation Mission's final report – from voter registration (in several provinces, the number of registered voters exceeded the total voting-age population) to the tallying and tabulation of results.
Almost all petitions challenging the provisional results were dismissed on procedural grounds due to ambiguities in national legislation regarding the preconditions for filing petitions. The Constitutional Council acknowledged irregularities and significantly revised the results announced by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), reducing Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo’s vote share by 5.5% and stripping Frelimo of 24 parliamentary seats—though it did not provide a comprehensive explanation of the legal criteria behind its decision. These shortcomings further deepened the already widespread distrust in the electoral process, a sentiment also reflected in the low voter turnout of 43.3% for the presidential election, the second lowest since 2004.
The credibility of the election administration was severely undermined, particularly regarding the independence and technical capacity of the CNE. The commission’s partisan composition, which reflects parliamentary representation as part of a historical compromise between Frelimo and Renamo at the end of the civil war, has long raised concerns. Its impartiality was heavily questioned during the October 2023 municipal elections when the Constitutional Council, ruling on opposition appeals, overturned the CNE’s announced results in four municipalities (where victory was initially assigned to the opposition) and ordered re-runs in another four, out of a total of 65.
Serious flaws have eroded confidence in the legitimacy of the electoral process. However, while the irregularities may not have been substantial enough to overturn Frelimo’s victory, the party’s continued dominance is also reinforced by its ability to leverage the advantages of incumbency, particularly through the misuse of state resources to maintain national outreach, especially in rural communities.
After the vote, victory was claimed by both Frelimo and Mondlane, who launched a separate vote counting. Mondlane even announced his intention to take office as President on January 15, in a parallel ceremony to the official one. At the time of writing there seem to be a gradual stabilization of the situation and easing of tensions. Mondlane seems to be gradually assuming the role of opponent (instead of that of President-elect), although his recent breakup with the Podemos party will likely reduce his capacity to lead a sustained opposition against Frelimo and scrutinize the ruling party’s agenda.
Meanwhile, President Chapo committed to reforms to fight corruption, cut public administration costs, and strengthen the judicial system, including transforming the Constitutional Council into a Constitutional Court. It remains to be seen whether his pledges will translate into an inclusive and comprehensive reform process. If so, the Mozambican crisis might at least have given impetus to attempts to implement long due reforms to strengthen the accountability of national institutions and on increase the transparency of the elections.
The Mozambican crisis can be seen as the latest example highlighting the limitations of formal elections, which are not only a manifestation of incomplete constitutional transitions but also potential obstacles to the path of democratic consolidation. In countries where electoral competition is limited or even absent, elections raise expectations of change that are quickly disappointed, leading to frustration, dissatisfaction with democratic institutions, and, in turn, increasing the risk of instability. Façade elections serve to legitimize the exercise of power by ruling parties, both domestically and in relation to international donors. The mere act of holding elections can be presented as sufficient to satisfy Western democracy-related conditionality, which is often required to access foreign assistance. Mozambique, like many developing countries, is heavily dependent on such aid.
Ruling parties may concentrate their efforts and economic resources – clientelist practices increase costs related to the organization of elections, further constraining governments' spending capacity in developing countries – on winning the elections rather than promoting a good governance system. Instead, one could argue that attention should be paid on how to promote development and reduce inequalities by ensuring broad-based access to the political, social, economic, and environmental resources of a country. Mozambique ranks low in the Mo Ibrahim index (28 out of 54 countries) on governance, which is the focus of the African Union Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance. The population’s perceived exclusion from the benefits of national resource exploitation was a key driver of the recent protests and remains a root cause of instability in the northern province of Cabo Delgado. Since 2015, an Islamist insurgency has exploited popular frustration with the region’s longstanding marginalization.
Changing this perception and working to ensure a transparent management of the country’s abundant resources—illustrated by the recent establishment of the Sovereign Wealth Fund for the sustainable management of hydrocarbon resources —will be among the challenges of the recently inaugurated President.
