MOZAMBIQUE

Constitutional reform in 1990 ended the state’s formal commitment to a Marxist-Leninist single-party system. The president is directly elected, and may serve a maximum of two five-year terms.

Political history

In ancient times gold, ivory and slaves from Zimbabwe and Monomotapa were exported through the ports of Mozambique Island and Sofala. These trading centres were the southernmost points of the Islamic sphere of influence, which had been created along the East African coast by Arab traders. The Portuguese arrived at the turn of the 15th century and established themselves on Mozambique Island after dislodging the Arab sultan.

Portugal's "right of occupation" of Mozambique was recognized at the Berlin conference of 1884-85 but most of the present borders of the country were fixed on the map only by the Anglo-Portuguese conventions of 1891. In 1898 the capital was moved from Mozambique Island to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), and a royal commissioner was given responsibility for governing the territory. Systematic colonial rule was effectively established between 1910 and 1920.

The Portuguese coup of 1926 and the subsequent establishment of Dr Salazar's corporate state, the Estado Novo, brought about change in colonial policy. The new rulers wanted to give substance to Portugal's largely mythical imperial tradition. An official ideology was launched, of a Pan-Lusitanian community based on political and legal unity and the economic solidarity of the metropolis and its colonies. Politically and administratively this meant a highly centralized system of bureaucratic control. Economically it signified the continued monopolization of the local African economy by Portuguese interests, which lacked either the money or entrepreneurial skills to develop the colonies.

The building of railways linking the coast with Central Africa, financed by foreign capital and completed in the late 1920s, helped open up the interior and created new sources of revenue. Until the end of World War II, however, Portuguese Africa recorded little economic progress, except in the plantations, which were worked by labourers drawn forcibly from the African population, a system in many respects akin to slavery and so harsh that many communities sought to escape into neighbouring colonies.

The boom in commodity prices at the end of World War II had important social and political implications, for it intensified the latent conflict between whites and blacks, making enormous new demands for forced labour and encouraging white immigration and the expropriation of black lands. This was the period of massive Portuguese settlement in the colonies. Most of these settlers were of peasant stock, poorly educated and possessing few skills or resources. Rather than brave the isolation and dangers of rural settlement many of these immigrants sought the comparative comfort and security of the towns, where they competed for jobs with the urbanized black and mestiço populations.

This particular development aggravated a growing racial antagonism, and emphasized the primacy of white Portuguese interests, official ideology notwithstanding. Official policy towards blacks and coloureds had long been one of selective assimilation as part of Portugal's self-proclaimed "civilizing mission". In fact Portugal lacked the means to carry out such a policy, while its local agents remained actively hostile to the implied dream of racial assimilation.

The economic and social tensions and opportunities of the period 1945-1961 saw the rebirth of local political activity. White settler groups agitated for a greater degree of local autonomy, some government-backed assimilados urged a gradualist welfare approach to improve the appallingly poor standard of health and education facilities available to blacks. There were other more radical movements too. In the countryside neo-traditionalist peasant movements made a prophetic appeal to the rural population. In the towns a militant assimilado intelligentsia expressed the tension implicit in being at one and the same time African and Portuguese-educated.

By the 1960s the nationalist movement in the Portuguese colonies had begun to emerge into militant action. On the other side stood a Portuguese state whose own political rigidity militated against compromise with local, or even domestic opposition. But Portugal's own economic weakness also made intransigence virtually inevitable in the face of African demands for independence. The only way that Portugal could continue to draw essential economic benefits from its overseas possessions was by a form of direct exploitation that only the exercise of sovereignty could guarantee. For Portugal, unlike Britain and France, neo-colonialism never offered an acceptable alternative.

Harsh regulations, chiefly in the form of forced labour laws, imposed by the Portuguese led to opposition to colonial rule by African groups. The black élite, along with a few liberal-minded whites, had established several organisations for social and cultural purposes as early as the 1920s. One of these organizations was the African League that was later renamed the African Association. Another was the Associated Centre for the Negroes of Mozambique, which was officially disbanded in 1965 when it was charged with subversion. The Association of the Native-Born of Mozambique was expanded during the 1950s to include Africans and coloureds. It advocated social integration in Mozambique. In the early 1960s some of its members were arrested or forced into exile.

In June 1962 three exiled groups -- the Mozambique African National Union (Manu), the National Democratic Union of Mozambique (Udenamo) and the National African Union of Independent Mozambique (Unami) -- met at a conference in Dar-es-Salaam sponsored by the Tanganyikan president, Julius Nyerere. The three groups merged in a single new organization, the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) with Eduardo Mondlane as its first president.

On 24 September 1964, after two years of organizing and building up its forces, Frelimo guerrillas crossed the Rovuma River (the border between Tanzania and Mozambique) and launched an attack against the Portuguese administrative post near the town of Mueda. This signalled the beginning of the armed struggle for the independence of Mozambique. In Mozambique the main areas of military action after 1964 lay in the two northern provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa, where guerrillas controlled large areas. From 1968 onwards Frelimo also launched attacks against Portuguese garrisons in the Tete province. The South African government assisted the Portuguese government in its war against Frelimo.

In 1969 Dr Eduardo Mondlane was assassinated and was succeeded by Samora Machel as president of Frelimo. The war against Portugal ended after the dictatorship of President Marcello Caetano was overthrown during a left-wing coup in Lisbon on 25 April 1974. In a hurry to get rid of its colonies, the new Portuguese government transferred its authority in Mozambique to Frelimo, which refused to participate in an election and suppressed its rivals for power.

A transitional government with Joaquim Chissano as prime minister was formed in September 1974 and led the country to independence. The Peoples' Republic of Mozambique came into existence on 25 June 1975 with Samora Machel as president. He died in an air crash on South African territory on 19 October 1986 and was succeeded as president the following February by Joaquim Chissano.

Mozambique's closure of the border with Rhodesia in 1976 and its support for Rhodesian liberation movements as well as its support for the African National Congress (ANC) during the 1980s had led to commando raids by Rhodesian and South African forces into Mozambican territory. The government also had to contend with armed opposition from the Resistencia Nacional de Mozambique (Renamo) which, capitalising upon peasant resistance to certain Frelimo policies in parts of Mozambique, was encouraged and supported by the Rhodesian, and subsequently by the South African, governments to serve as a opposition force inside Mozambique.

In 1990 constitutional reforms in Mozambique ended the state’s formal commitment to a Marxist-Leninist single-party system. This, the collapse of the Eastern European regimes and the opening of political dialogue in South Africa all facilitated negotiations to settle Mozambique’s civil war. On 4 October 1992 a General Peace Agreement between Renamo and Frelimo was signed in Rome, bringing to an end a civil conflict that had completed the devastation of the countryside and the dislocation of what remained of the economy. The accord made provision for a cease-fire and for multiparty elections.

In the first multiparty elections in 1994 the ruling party, the Frente de Libertacão de Moçambique (Frelimo), secured 44% of the vote and 129 seats in the 250 member assembly. The opposition Resistencia Nacional Mocambicana (Renamo), of Afonso Dhlakama won 112 seats with 38% of the vote. The Unaio Democrática de Moçambique (Udemo), led by Gimo Phiri took 5% of the vote and 9 seats. The remaining 13% of the vote was split among 11 other parties, none of which crossed the required threshold to secure representation in the Assembly.

Following initial alarms and threats of a boycott by Afonso Dhlakama, the Renamo leader, the elections passed off remarkably peacefully, and Renamo made a surprisingly strong showing in the populous central and northern provinces, eventually securing 38% of the vote to Frelimo's 44%. President Chissano was re-elected president of Mozambique with 53% of the vote to Dhlakama's 34%.

The period after the elections of 1994 involved something of a transition for both the major political parties. The headlines were frequently dominated by the bitterness that surfaced from time to time between Frelimo and Renamo in public exchanges characterized by extreme language and inflammatory accusations. Such outbursts occasionally alarmed the foreign sponsors of Mozambican democracy, and in October 1995 led to the visit of a high-level South African delegation following allegations of a coup plot.

Certainly there were practical problems in extending the authority of the central government into certain areas of traditional Renamo support. Here a virtual dual administration developed as local Renamo leaders in Sofala and Manica sought to exclude representatives of the central government from their fiefdoms. In some respects, however, this also reflected a long-standing sentiment in these regions, of rejection of centralized rule. The idea of a centralized democracy is a very new one which can be expected to have to overcome a long tradition of local particularism and resistance.

Yet in parliament itself the two major parties succeeded initially in getting on remarkably well, with differences of opinion not necessarily corresponding to the organizational divide It was particularly remarkable to see how well the seven cross-party working committees were performing.

Perhaps of greater interest were the internal problems faced by Frelimo and Renamo. The latter continued to experience difficulties at grassroots in transforming itself from an armed resistance movement to a political party. Its MPs lacked experience, which allowed them to be outmanoeuvred by wilier Frelimo representatives, and by the party's inability to formulate a clear and coherent set of policy positions. This was complicated to some extent by the ruling party's ideological shift to the right.

Within Frelimo, too, there was growing evidence of discontent within the party's ranks. This manifested itself in tensions between Frelimo as a party and its MPs. Frelimo has a history of schism and, with the civil war at an end, began to look more like its old self: a broad coalition of different interests. In mid-1996 the central committee called the government to task for failing to consult the party about reforms, and for getting its priorities wrong. The central committee urged government to focus on combatting absolute poverty and generating employment. It  opposed wholesale privatization and warned of disaster if macroeconomic polices were adopted which bore no relation to most Mozambicans' experience. It also opposed the pursuit of low inflation for its own sake and pressed for the stimulation of economic growth. This was not merely a matter of conflict between socialist dinosaurs and technocrats, in that many of the latter are also unconvinced about the policies advocated by the IMF. The business associations also called for massive investment even at the cost of driving up inflation, though this should be aimed at boosting production and not consumption. They were also sceptical of government claims that most privatized companies had been bought by Mozambicans. These companies, bought mostly on credit, were mostly stagnating for lack of capital to resume proper production.

The holding of local elections was one of the most serious points of contention between Renamo and Frelimo. The former wanted elections held simultaneously across the entire country, while Frelimo wanted them held piecemeal, which would have given it an advantage in disguising the size of Renamo's support. There were repeated delays and municipal elections were eventually held only in June 1998. Renamo called for a boycott of these elections and more than 80% voters abstained from voting. Though Frelimo secured victory in all 33 municipalities, it anticipated the general elections of 1999 with some trepidation.

The second national elections, and the first under Mozambican supervision were held in December 1999. The campaign was marked by inflammatory rhetoric but little actual violence.  There was little to choose between the major party’s manifestos, and appeals to history simply drew attention to the regional power bases of the two, Renamo being characterized by the southern dominated Frelimo as a product of the apartheid years, and Renamo reminding the people of the centre and the north of the impact of the government’s forced collectivization programme the removal of traditional authorities during the 1970s and 1980s and of the continued pre-eminence of the south in terms of development and political patronage.

Once again the result was close. In the presidential elections, Chissano took 52.2% of the vote, edging out Dhlakama. In the parliamentary elections Frelimo increased its number of seats to 133 to Renamo’s 117. None of the smaller parties secured a high enough percentage to qualify for parliamentary representation, though an alliance between Renamo and ten small parties has secured 16 seats for their candidates, who may yet follow an independent line, despite having formed part of the Renamo bloc.

Though Frelimo did succeed in making some inroads in the north, where it secured a majority of seats in Cabo Delgado, the only other provinces to return Frelimo candidates in superior numbers were Maputo City, Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane. Sofala, Manica, Zambezia, Tete, Niassa and Nampula all saw Renamo take the majority of seats, albeit narrowly in the cases of the three last named.

Renamo was swift to condemn the results of the elections as fraudulent and by February 2000 was even beginning to threaten to establish parallel administrations in areas of its political dominance. This gambit was probably more an attempt to bargain its way into some sort of local power-sharing agreement than a genuine threat, and after a short while Renamo took up its seats in parliament. The more immediate national disaster of widespread flooding on a scale almost unprecedented gave both parties pause in which to reconsider some ill-considered and virulent rhetoric, and the bitterness abated for a while.

More recently, however, elements on both sides of the political fence have resumed some hardline posturing, with the government continuing to refuse Renamo any say in the administration and, in late September 2000, two Renamo officials calling for a virtual division of the country along the line of the River Save, so that their party could rule the central and northern regions. According to this far-fetched plan, Renamo supporters living south of the Save would be evacuated to the north of the river.

In another development calculated to raise the political temperature, police raids were carried out on premises belonging to senior Renamo officials and automatic weapons confiscated. Dhlakama warned that his people would resist such operations in future.

Though Chissano has retained the technocratic nature of his previous cabinet, that he secured a presidential and parliamentary victory, and that he is serving his final term as head of state opens the way for a deepening of the internal factional divide within Frelimo. There is a group of Frelimo old guard MPs under the leadership of Armando Guebuza vying for control of the party, and opposed to the liberalization of the Mozambican economy, the loss of patronage and rent-seeking opportunities, and the foreign penetration it brings in its wake.

Dhlakama’s weak leadership of Renamo since 1994 allowed his deputy and the leader of the party in parliament, Raul Domingos, to take a larger role. Following the 1999 elections, Domingos was replaced as parliamentary leader by a relatively unknown figure, and was subsequently dismissed from the party for allegedly co-operating too enthusiastically with Frelimo. Frelimo may also have contributed to his downfall by leaking certain details of private discussions, and some will rejoice at the departure of so formidable a parliamentary opponent. As far as Renamo is concerned, these developments place the party more firmly under Dhlakama’s control, and opens the way for more extreme elements to voice their views.

The period since the elections of 1994 has involved something of a transition for both the major political parties. The headlines have often been dominated by the bitterness that surfaces from time to time between Frelimo and Renamo in public exchanges characterized by extreme language and inflammatory accusations. Such outbursts have occasionally alarmed the foreign sponsors of Mozambican democracy, and in October 1995 led to the visit of a high-level South African delegation following allegations of a coup plot.

Certainly there have been practical problems in extending the authority of the central government into certain areas of traditional Renamo support. Here a virtual dual administration developed as local Renamo leaders in Sofala and Manica sought to exclude representatives of the central government from their fiefdoms. In some respects, however, this also reflected a long-standing sentiment in these regions, of rejection of centralized rule. The idea of a centralized democracy is a very new one which can be expected to have to overcome a long tradition of local particularism and resistance.

Aid agency practices have encouraged a brain drain from the public sector, and agencies in effect compete with the state for international funds for development initiatives.

The country's own macroeconomic data have been described as “a morass of contradiction and inaccuracy”, and there are significant differences between government and World Bank sources. There are signs that this situation will be addressed now that a newly autonomous National Statistical Institute has been established and has ben given foreign technical assistance.

Internal turmoil of political, ethnic or religious origin

Until recently in parliament itself the two major parties have been getting on remarkably well, with differences of opinion not necessarily corresponding to the organizational divide. The National Assembly and other institutions are pressing on with the establishment of a new government infrastructure despite a marked lack of resources. There are also complaints that too much time is wasted, in particular because legislators come ill-prepared for debates, or indulge in petty point-scoring and procedural squabbles.

That said, it is remarkable to see how well the seven cross-party working committees are performing. They are not merely rubber-stamping government decisions. Key committee positions have been distributed evenly between the three parties represented in parliament, and committee members have been chosen for their relevant experience. At times these committees have been critical of government policy, and their output has not always followed the expected party lines. Thus, the committee dealing with economic activities and services has been critical of the lack of transparency in the planned privatization programme. The chairman, a Renamo MP, has also argued that the impressive performance of the railway and port serving the Beira corridor shows that state enterprises can be financially viable, and that privatization is not the only route to greater efficiency. This is certainly not a development that could have been anticipated in 1994. The committee on legal affairs also ruled the government's bill on local elections unconstitutional, an argument later accepted by the majority of MPs, who rejected the bill.

Perhaps of greater interest at present are the internal problems faced by Frelimo and Renamo. The latter is still experiencing difficulties in transforming itself from an armed resistance movement to a political party. Its MPs lack experience, which allows them to be outmanoeuvred by wilier Frelimo representatives, and by the party's inability to formulate a clear and coherent set of policy positions. This is complicated to some extent by the ruling party's ideological shift to the right. Afonso Dhlakama's position is also being called into question. He is seen as out of touch with many parliamentarians and with the more militant leadership in the central provinces. He is, however, a major beneficiary of the international donor community's support for democracy and Renamo, though funding remains a major concern.

Within Frelimo, too, there is growing evidence of discontent within the party's ranks. This manifests itself in tensions between Frelimo as a party and its MPs. Frelimo has a history of schism, and is now beginning to look more like its old self: a broad coalition of different interests. In mid-1996 the central committee called the government to task for failing to consult the party about reforms, and for getting its priorities wrong. The central committee urged government to focus on combatting absolute poverty and generating employment. It  opposed wholesale privatization and warned of disaster if macroeconomic polices were adopted which bore no relation to most Mozambicans' experience. It also opposed the pursuit of low inflation for its own sake and pressed for the stimulation of economic growth. This is not merely a matter of conflict between socialist dinosaurs and technocrats, in that many of the latter are also unconvinced about the policies advocated by the IMF. The business associations have called for massive investment even at the cost of driving up inflation, though this should be aimed at boosting production and not consumption. They were also sceptical of government claims that most privatized companies had been bought by Mozambicans. These companies, bought mostly on credit were mostly stagnating for lack of capital to resume proper production.

The holding of local elections was one of the most serious points of contention between Renamo and Frelimo. The former wanted elections held simultaneously across the entire country, while Frelimo wanted them held piecemeal, which would have given it an advantage in disguising the size of Renamo's support. There were repeated delays and municipal elections were eventually held only in June 1998. Renamo called for a boycott of these elections and more than 80% voters abstained from voting. Though Frelimo secured victory in all 33 municipalities, it will await the general elections of October 1999 with some trepidation.

Religious animosities continue to surface from time to time. The Mozambican government, historically secular to the point refusing to recognize the traditional Christian holidays as religious, suddenly angered the country's influential Catholic church by declaring two Muslim festivals as public holidays. Renamo promptly condemned the move, alienating a number of Muslims who had supported its campaign in 1994. The issue reignited the controversy surrounding Mozambique's joining the International Islamic Conference a few years ago. The Catholics have voiced concern about the growing influence of Iranian funding and about the ease with which Islam establishes itself in the traditional African milieu. Matters were not eased by Mozambique joining the Commonwealth, although the establishment of a Lusophone community in April 1996 reduced tensions on this front.

The most serious threat to Mozambique's stability at present lies not in the prospect of a return to arms by either of the main parties and a renewal of the civil war, but in the danger of increasing crime and violence as the economy fails to expand quickly enough to satisfy the needs of ex-combatants. Economic constraints continue to prevent the government from adopting policies that will consolidate the peace among ordinary Mozambicans by changing their lives for the better.

The level of crime is rising alarmingly, with AK-47s in abundance. There is also evidence of an increase in crime connected with the international drugs trade. all this compounded by the growing level of corruption. Armed gangs prey upon traffic along the major roads in the south and centre of the country. The police appear either unable or unwilling to do anything about the situation, and there was widespread relief when in November 1996 President Chissano dismissed the interior minister and his deputy. The armed forces, meanwhile, are too understaffed and poorly equipped to take any part in activities in aid of the civil power. This is a situation demanding urgent attention, though funds are not available to rehabilitate the forces.

Apart from the activities of armed bands there have also been a number of outbreaks of sporadic violence, usually started by demobilized ex-combatants who feel that they have lost out in the peace process. In mid-March 1996 there were incidents in Nampula and Zambezia provinces, involving large-scale looting by several hundred people. There are disputes about how long demobilization payments were to be kept up. Underlying all this is the general economic and social malaise leading to real distress. Neither the government nor the international community is making an effort to confront this problem directly, and it will be some time before any of the hoped for trickle-down effects of economic recovery take effect.