Violence in Mozambique will produce no winners

Gibson Nyikadzino

THE year that has just ended was marked by a notable milestone in human history.

It saw a record four billion people going to the polls in 75 countries.

This means almost half of the world’s population voted in 2024.

It was unprecedented.

Twenty-nine elections were considered “major”.

Without looking much into the criterion used to distinguish major from minor polls, here in Southern Africa, elections in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Mauritius and Mozambique were all “major”.

They did not only exhibit the will of the people to consolidate their gains as sovereign nations but also refined democratic progress.

They also instilled confidence in the importance of the right by citizens to choose and find each other in times of democratic difficulty.

Some democratic difficulties that come to the fore include the Government of National Unity (GNU) in South Africa, in which the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance had to come to terms in addressing post-election uncertainties in last year’s elections.

In politics, you make peace with those you disagree with to establish common operational rules.
Of concern, in that regard, is the situation in Mozambique.

The ongoing spectre of violence in Mozambique is something that is now difficult to comprehend in the framework of grievances arising from electoral losses.

Radicalising people, encouraging banditry and militancy in the name of addressing electoral challenges is going off at a tangent insofar as the principles of democratic development and peaceful co-existence are concerned.

In fact, it is Stone Age in form and character.

As such, it is difficult to see the violence gripping Mozambique as election-related, but an organised, systematic and methodical way of attacking the country’s sovereignty.

There is empirical proof that there are elements taking advantage of the unrest to manipulate the people for their number one goal, which is to attack the credibility of Frelimo as a former liberation movement.

The violence follows the 9 October presidential election, which the opposition Podemos party claimed was mismanaged in favour of Frelimo candidate and president-elect, Daniel Chapo.

However, Podemos losing candidate Venancio Mondlane has not presented any evidence to support his claims of victory, and international commentators and experts have refrained from supporting him.

Mondlane is now resorting to instigating violence while out of the country.

By resorting to unconstitutional means to come to power, advocates of violence are exploiting the country’s rocky transition it has had since independence from Portugal in 1975, as well as the subsequent civil war from 1977 to 1992, and the ensuing decades of post-war development that have seen further political instability, election-related violence and an insurgency in Cabo Delgado.

While the developments in Mozambique have been commented on, discussions have not been exhaustive.

There are at least two key points that regional and international political observers are missing about Mozambique and Frelimo, especially on positioning against imperialism, racism and colonialism.

Mozambique geopolitically played a key role after its independence, which concerned Western governments during the Cold War, when it supported Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence.

So, historically, Mozambique’s bold stance on Zimbabwe’s independence played out when it was bordering two anti-Marxist states; that is, apartheid South Africa and racist Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Therefore, if there are external factors that can be seen in the political and electoral violence going on in Mozambique, its traditional anti-apartheid, anti-imperial, anti-colonial and anti-racist positions can be included as reasons chaos can likely be engineered against that country, and the region, too.

Therefore, the situation is being pushed towards escalation and can be fluid.

The posture of the opposition parties shows that they are now coalescing around a position that tries to legitimise the demands by Mondlane, which they are also being careful of doing, especially the Renamo party, which has been the traditional opposition of Frelimo.

By its appearance, the push by the opposition Podemos party is trying to create three poles of power and contestation; that is, the official one from the government position, one from the Podemos party that is being extreme and the one from Renamo, which appears to be neutral on the outside.

This makes the situation more fluid.

Recently, South Africa offered to assist Mozambique resolve the current challenges.

However, the biggest challenge by the opposition is that the Podemos is planning to create a satellite government that opposes the one that is officially in power when Mondlane goes ahead with “inaugurating” himself on January 15.

This is a familiar script.

In Kenya, in 2018, losing opposition candidate Raila Odinga conducted a mock inauguration as the “people’s president”, while in Zimbabwe, in September 2018, Nelson Chamisa held a similar event, also modelling himself as the “people’s president”.

So, this road by Mondlane has some who walked it before.
South Africa’s offer to assist to end the violence shows that, as a regional hegemon, it has felt the impact of violence and post-election disturbances.

The movement of goods has not been smooth on the South Africa-Mozambique border.

Equally, the success of other regional countries hinges on peace in Mozambique.

As there is a vested interest in a peaceful resolution to the ongoing violence in Mozambique by all parties, including SADC (Southern African Development Community), it should be stated that the regional bloc has a consensus that when it comes to elections, outcomes should be respected.
Grievances should be addressed using formal channels.

It is doubtful that ordinary people are behind this anarchy, or their grievances have been hijacked.

Where violence becomes a preferred instrument to either change or remodel state institutions, decades of progress are lost.

The country’s security situation is deteriorating, especially with the insurgency in the country’s north displacing tens of thousands of people.

The damaged infrastructure will also be expensive to rebuild, and will likely require foreign investment that might not be forthcoming given the risk of projects being derailed by violence.

Destruction of infrastructure by Cyclone Chido last December and the threat of hunger and food insecurity are elements that the opposition are not considering.

In many ways, both the economic and the greater political security of the region hinges on this moment.
Violence will not address the situation; it worsens it.

Violence cannot be the solution.

If Mozambicans are naïve to believe Mondlane’s post-election strategy, they will discover how painful it will be to rebuild Mozambique.

Resorting to peace is ideal.

Gibson Nyikadzino is a politics and international affairs analyst. He can be contacted on: gnyikadzino@gmail.com