by Phyllis Johnson – SANF 14 no 54
Almost 11 million eligible voters across Mozambique are voting this week for their candidates for president, the national assembly (parliament) and provincial assemblies.
The election campaign from end August into mid-October has been largely peaceful and good-natured, with events such as a football match in Vilanculos, Inhambane province between the ruling Frelimo party supporters and those from the opposition Renamo party, which concluded a peace agreement just before the campaign started.
Both sides wore party t-shirts, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw.
However, there were clashes further south in Gaza province in September between supporters of Frelimo and those of the emerging opposition party, the Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), who were awaiting the arrival of their presidential candidate, and also in provinces further north.
There has been a strong and visible campaign by the election authorities and main parties to campaign peacefully and this has been the case throughout most of the country.
Police have responded quickly to incidents threatening to turn violent, and only two incidents marred the final weekend of the campaign, which was generally calm and busy, except for incidents in Nampula city and in Angoche, both in the centre-north of the country.
All three parties have complained of their posters being torn down, but there was a party mood as the campaign ended in some cities such as Quelimane, the capital of Zambezia province, where rallies moved on to music and street parties.
The campaign has been lively and tough with all three of the main parties working hard in the huge country of almost 800,000 sq km with a population of almost 25 million people.
The current President, Armando Guebuza, has served two terms in office under the constitution and will stand down when the next President is inaugurated early next year.
However, he remains president of the Frelimo party that fought a liberation war and brought independence to Mozambique under its first leaders, the iconic heroes Eduardo Mondlane and Samora Machel.
The leading candidate to be the next President of Mozambique comes from the northernmost province as the country begins to shift focus to the resource-rich north, and back to its roots.
Filipe Jacinto Nyussi, 55, who was elected as presidential candidate by the central committee of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) earlier this year, was born at Mueda in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, which borders on southern Tanzania.
Cabo Delgado was the heart and headquarters of the war of liberation in Mozambique (1964-1975), supported by Tanzania. Both countries have recently identified significant reserves of natural gas offshore in the border area, and many strategic minerals are located in the area.
The province that ignited the liberation war 50 years ago, and became the dry grass that fuelled its rapid expansion, is now the site of this more recent discovery — 80 trillion cubic feet of natural gas discovered off the coast, acknowledged as the largest natural gas find of the last decade.
Nyussi, who was appointed by Guebuza as Minister of Defence in 2008 and elected to the party central committee in 2012, says he will build on the work of previous leaders. His campaign has focused on “continuity” with existing policies for investment and economic growth as well as improving access to education, clean water, jobs and health.
If elected on 15 October, he will become the first President to originate from the north of the vast country that stretches 2,470 kilometres along the south-east coast of Africa between the United Republic of Tanzania and South Africa.
Another prominent contestant for President of the Republic of Mozambique is the MDM leader, Daviz Simango, who won election as the Mayor of Beira on a Renamo ticket in 2003, but broke away to run as an independent candidate in 2008 and was re-elected in 2013.
Beira is the capital of the Sofala province where Renamo has been causing unrest.
Simango has been the mayor of Beira for the past decade, but after the 2008 election, he formed his own party, the MDM, which contested the national elections the following year.
Significant confusion is caused by the name similarities in some places, as the Frelimo mayor of Maputo is a different person by the name of David Simango.
The MDM, which holds only eight seats in the National Assembly, says it is confident of victory having done well in municipal elections in November 2013. The party won mayoral and council elections in three of the four main cities (Beira, Quelimane and Nampula) and a smaller town, while Frelimo swept most the other 54 municipalities despite losing almost half of its support in the capital, Maputo.
The MDM has announced its objective to win a majority in the National Assembly, promising to give Mozambicans greater benefits from the country’s mineral wealth.
Although holding only eight seats in the current parliament, the MDM has a well-resourced campaign and could surpass Renamo as the main opposition party.
Simango won only 8.6 percent of the vote in the last presidential election against the Renamo leader, Afonso Dhlakama, who got 16.5 percent, and the popular President Guebuza who polled just under 75 percent.
The Frelimo party also drew 75 percent of the vote, while Renamo won 18 percent and MDM four percent. The percentages are expected to change this time, with some gains for MDM and a reduction in the number of seats for Renamo, and possibly Frelimo.
Renamo has cited irregularities in previous elections, and boycotted the opening of Parliament after the last national elections in 2009, although its 51 deputies took their seats alongside eight for MDM and 191 for Frelimo.
Dhlakama has been quiet on that subject following the peace agreement that gave him more representation on the national elections directorate and more staff at polling stations, in addition to party observers.
The Southern African Development Community has deployed its SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) throughout the country, headed by South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Hon. Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.
In launching the SEOM in early October, the SADC Executive Secretary, Dr. Stergomena Lawrence Tax, said this “exemplifies SADC’s commitment to the enhancement of democracy and governance, peace and stability in the region and to the ultimate objective of economic growth and sustainable development.”
South Africa and Zimbabwe have the largest observer contingents with more than 100 observers each, according to Miguel de Brito of the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa. De Brito predicted a Frelimo victory but at a much lower percentage than the last election, saying the result could be as close as 55 percent Frelimo and 45 percent for the combined opposition parties.
Observer missions are also in the country from China and Vietnam, as well as the African Union, European Union, the Commonwealth and the community of Portuguese-speaking countries, including Portugal and Brazil.
They are able to observe the vote counting from district level for the first time, and will observe some of the 17,000 polling stations staffed by 130,000 officials.
A new book published by Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) Mozambique says that, while 39 percent of members of the current National Assembly are women, which is one of the highest rates in the world, this has not changed the politics, which remains male-dominated and ignores women and issues impacting on women.
The book, Moçambique. Eleições Autarquicas de 2013 – Participação e Representação de mulheres e homens is a study of the municipal elections in Beira, Dondo, Manhica and Maputo by Conceição Osorio and Ernesto Macuacua, and is available only in the Portuguese language.
Of the 53 heads of the new municipal assemblies, 18 (34 percent) are women, but only 5
(9 percent) of mayors are women. All are Frelimo; MDM does not have a female head of the assembly or
Mayor in the four cities it controls.
The book notes that women seem unable to influence policies of parties and that political parties do not see the need to give a prominent position to issues that impact specifically on women. sardc.net
