MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019: PERNICIOUS POLARIZATION, DEMOCRATIC DECLINE, AND RISING AUTHORITARIANISM
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African Affairs, 119/476, 468–486 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adaa012
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
Advance Access Publication 30 May 2020
MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019:
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PERNICIOUS POLARIZATION, DEMOCRATIC
DECLINE, AND RISING
AUTHORITARIANISM
M. Anne Pitcher *
ABSTRACT
Mozambique’s 2019 elections resulted in a landslide victory for the incum-
bent Frelimo party, but they were also characterized by unprecedented
levels of election related violence and other irregularities. The briefing
demonstrates that polarization, which has been a common feature of
Mozambican politics since independence, has become more pernicious at
least since 2013. As is the case in other countries, pernicious polarization
is contributing to rising authoritarianism in Mozambique. The briefing
traces the roots of pernicious polarization, its shifting dynamics over the
last several years, and its impact on the exercise of democratic rights in
Mozambique’s recent elections.
Mozambique completed its sixth general elections in October 2019—
marking 25 years of multiparty politics that began in 1994 after a long civil
conflict. Voters chose from among four presidential candidates, selected
parties for the Assembly of the Republic, and voted for legislative assemblies
in all ten provinces. The ruling party, the Front for the Liberation of
Mozambique (Frelimo), won the Presidency, secured a majority of seats in
the national legislature, and captured a majority of seats in the provincial
assemblies, soundly beating its longtime rival, the Mozambique National
Resistance (Renamo).
The re-election to power of an incumbent party is not unusual in Africa.
The African National Congress (ANC), which came to power in 1994
*M. Anne Pitcher (pitchera@umich.edu) is a Professor in the Departments of Political Science
and Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Research for this briefing
draws on a study of election-related violence in Africa conducted with Grant Masterson of
the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) and Rod Alence of the
University of the Witwatersrand and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. I am
grateful to participants in the African Studies seminar at Oxford University, the editors of
African Affairs, and anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions, and to Peter Carroll
for research assistance.
468MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 469
following the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, has been continuously
returned to office, although with declining majorities. Other ruling parties,
such as Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) in Tanzania and Zimbabwe African
National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) in Zimbabwe, survived the
transition from single to multiparty politics—as Mozambique’s governing
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party did—and now rely on a blend of rewards and repression to retain their
grip on power.1
Like these latter countries, Mozambique performs poorly on most indices
of democracy. With respect to political rights and civil liberties, Freedom
House has classified Mozambique as partly free since 1994.2 The more
recent electoral democracy index created by the Varieties of Democracy
(V-Dem) project measures essential elements of democracy such as free-
dom of expression, clean elections, the extent of suffrage, and an inde-
pendent media. Like Tanzania, Mozambique’s score on the index hovers
around the midpoint between not at all democratic (0) and fully democratic
(1). Between 2009 and 2019, Mozambique’s score dropped from 0.49 to
0.41, indicating the erosion of its already weak democratic institutions and
increasing authoritarianism.3
To explain the change, I argue that Mozambique also represents a subset
of cases in Africa and beyond where class, ethnic, or partisan differences
have become both highly polarized and destructive. The roots of ‘pernicious
polarization’4 predate the adoption of de jure democratic institutions in
Mozambique; its characteristics have changed over time; and its expression
is violent. Lives have been lost, property destroyed, and the exercise of
political rights and civil liberties necessary to a functioning democracy—
which was already circumscribed—has deteriorated.
Building on theoretical and empirical work on pernicious polarization in
countries as diverse as the USA and Zimbabwe,5 this briefing traces the
features of polarization in Mozambique and its effect on the 2019 national
1. Jamie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle, Electoral politics in Africa since 1990: Continuity
in change (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019), pp. 122–123; Adrienne LeBas
and Ngonidzashe Munemo, ‘Elite conflict, compromise and enduring authoritarianism:
Polarization in Zimbabwe, 1980–2008’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science 681 (2019), pp. 209–226.
2. Freedom House, ‘2020_country_and_territory_ratings_and_status_FIW1973–2020’,
Freedom in the world, (30 March 2020).
3. For indicator and score, see Michael Coppedge, John Gerring, Carl Henrik Knutsen,
Staffan I. Lindberg, Jan Teorell, . . . and Daniel Ziblatt, ‘V-Dem [Country–Year/Country–
Date] Dataset v10’ Varieties of democracy (V-Dem) project (2020), (28 March 2020).
4. Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer, ‘Toward a theory of pernicious polarization and how it
harms democracies: Comparative evidence and possible remedies’, The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 681 (2019), pp. 234–271; Lebas and Munemo, ‘Elite
conflict, compromise’.
5. See, in particular, the contributions on pernicious polarization to The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science 681, 1 (2019) edited by Murat Somer and
Jennifer McCoy.470 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
elections. I show that bi-polarization was baked into the context and the
institutions of multiparty politics at its inception in the early 1990s. I then
explore the party dynamics and domestic conditions that have resulted in
polarization becoming pernicious after 2013 and how the dynamics of that
polarization have transformed over the last several years. In a final section, I
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demonstrate how pernicious polarization is undercutting efforts by citizens
to freely express their preferences and to hold government accountable.
I contribute to the broader literature on polarization by revealing the
varied tactics used by agents to polarize society and the ways in which
the electoral process becomes the focal point for such tactics. Moreover,
by documenting the emergence of an additional and explosive cleavage in
Mozambique, I highlight the volatility and unpredictability of those political
systems afflicted by high levels of polarization. Without overlooking their
differences, the Mozambican case offers a useful comparison with other,
sharply divided African countries such as Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Cameroon,
and Burundi.
The incumbent party won a landslide victory
Frelimo’s presidential candidate, Filipe Nyusi, running for his second and
final term, garnered approximately 73 percent of the vote in the 2019
elections. Frelimo also swept the elections for the national legislature,
capturing 184 out of 250 seats in comparison to 60 seats for the main
opposition party, Renamo, and 6 seats for the Democratic Movement
of Mozambique (MDM), a smaller third party that formed in 2009. In
addition, Frelimo secured a majority in all ten provincial assemblies, even
in several central provinces where Renamo has historically performed well.
MDM gained only 10 seats in provincial assemblies, in contrast to Renamo
which gained 156 seats and Frelimo a whopping 628 seats. These majorities
give Frelimo the power to choose all provincial governors, an institutional
change that the ruling party reluctantly granted under intense pressure from
Renamo, but from which Renamo will not now benefit. Turnout overall was
a modest 52 percent.6
Frelimo’s creation of a maximum winning coalition cannot be explained
by a robust economy or a sudden increase in the popularity of a party
that has ruled continuously since 1975. Economic growth has averaged
about 3 percent recently—not high enough to address increasing levels of
income and regional inequality or reduce absolute poverty. Although the
rate of poverty has declined substantially since the 1990s, the total number
of people living in poverty has increased. Owing to Mozambique’s high
fertility rate of 5.2 children per female, population growth is outpacing
6. All results can be accessed at Centro de Integridade Pública (CIP), Eleições 2018 e 2019,
(27 March 2020).MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 471
economic growth and producing a young age structure. 53 percent of the
population is under the age of 17. Annual per capita income in 2017 was
US$ 458, not much better than a decade ago. Only 22 percent of families
have access to electricity, and only 5 percent receive piped water inside their
homes.7
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Moreover, episodic violence between the two main parties, back-to-back
cyclones in 2019, and a domestic Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado
Province near the northern border between Tanzania and Mozambique
have devastated local communities and scared off investors. In addition,
a $2 billion dollar loan scam involving top state officials has damaged
Mozambique’s relationship with donors and contributed to massively high
government debt ratios, which were estimated to be 100 percent of GDP
in 2018.8 Large returns from the production of liquefied natural gas off
the coast of Cabo Delgado will allow the government to pay its debts and
increase social spending, but violence in the north of the country and the
negative economic impact of COVID-19 will likely delay the projected start
date of 2023.9
Frelimo has a stable base of support and ran a well-organized and
generously funded campaign, but much evidence suggests that it also
relied on widespread fraud, deception, intimidation, and violence to achieve
its outsized victory. Similarly, opposition parties, particularly Renamo,
issued threats, destroyed property and ballots, and resorted to isolated acts
of violence. Such undemocratic behavior has dogged multiparty politics
in Mozambique since the first elections in 1994,10 but the range and
severity of electoral abuses escalated sharply during the 2019 elections.
The sources of growing authoritarianism and chronic violence lie in the
7. Mozambique, Instituto Nacional de Estatística, ‘Resultados definitivos censo 2017
IV recenseamento geral da população e habitação,’ Cerimónia central, 29 de Abril
de 2019, (21 October 2019); Mozambique, Ministério da Economia e Finanças,
Direcção de Estudos Económicos e Financeiros, ‘Pobreza e bem-estar em Moçambique:
Quarta avaliação nacional, inquérito ao orçamento familiar-IOF 2014/15 (Outubro 2016).
For the methodology used to determine poverty, see pp. 10–14.
8. Kroll Associates, ‘Independent audit related to loans contracted by Proindicus S.A.,
EMATUM S.A. and Mozambique Asset Management’, Report prepared for the office of the
Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Mozambique, 23 June 2017, pp. 15–16, (15 March 2020);
Moody’s Investor Service, ‘Rating action: Moody’s upgrades Mozambique’s ratings to Caa2,
maintains stable outlook; assigns (P)Caa2 rating to the forthcoming bond; affirms the 2023
bond rating at Caa3’, (23 March 2020).
9. International Monetary Fund, ‘Republic of Mozambique: Selected issues’ (IMF Coun-
try Report No. 19/167, Washington DC, June 2019); Stuart Elliott, ‘Delay to Rovuma
lng latest setback for Mozambique lng sector’, S & P Global Platts, Website, 9 April
2020, (16 April 2020).
10. Adriano Nuvunga, ‘Mozambique’s 2014 elections: A repeat of misconduct, political
tension and Frelimo dominance’, Journal of African Elections 16, 2 (2017), pp. 71–94.472 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
political polarization that has been a signature feature of Mozambique since
independence in 1975.
Polarization
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To analyze Mozambique’s political schisms, I adopt Murat Somer and
Jennifer McCoy’s broader understanding of polarization.11 They stress the
‘political and relational’ divisions that can drive polarization in contrast
to the emphasis on ideological differences between parties conventionally
used by scholars. Polarization in Mozambique can be traced to a 16-year
civil conflict between Frelimo and Renamo that produced a stalemate by
1992. The conflict ended with no clear winner and was not followed by
any kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, thereby foreclosing
opportunities to expose wrongdoing, to resolve grievances that had con-
tributed to polarization, and to achieve psychological and political closure.
Nonetheless, donors and observers lauded Mozambique’s transition to
peace and democracy as a success story. They praised the negotiations and
compromises that led to the signing of the General Peace Agreement for
Mozambique (GPA) by Frelimo and Renamo in 1992 and the elections
that followed in 1994.12
Although the GPA established the core principles of multi-party democ-
racy as a condition of lasting peace, ironically, its terms also entrenched
political polarization and preserved the highly centralized state.13 With
respect to competitive party politics, adjudication mechanisms for electoral
politics, and the composition of key state agencies such as the armed forces,
the GPA institutionalized the ‘formative rift’ that motivated the conflict.14
The sources of this rift are only partly ideological. As several observers have
noted, rejection of Frelimo’s embrace of Marxism and its associated mod-
ernist condemnation of ‘tribes,’ ‘tradition’, and ‘obscurantism’ provided
the ideological justification for Renamo’s opposition to Frelimo, especially
after 1980.15 But these elements of Renamo’s resistance were never fully
11. Somer and McCoy, ‘Transformations through polarizations and global threats to
democracy’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681 (2019),
pp. 8–22 and in the same volume, McCoy and Somer, ‘Toward a theory of pernicious
polarization’.
12. Colin Darch, A success story gone wrong? The Mozambican conflict and the peace process in
historical perspective (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Mozambique, 2018).
13. General Peace Agreement for Mozambique (GPA), Rome, (4 October), United Nations
Security Council S/24635. Annex, 1992, (21 January 2020).
14. Somer and McCoy, Transformations through polarizations, p. 15.
15. Michel Cahen, ‘The war as seen by Renamo: Guerrilla politics and the ‘move to the
north’ at the time of the Nkomati Accord, 1983–1985’, pp. 100–146, and Eric Morier-
Genoud, ‘War in Inhambane: Re-shaping the state, society and economy’, in Eric Morier-
Genoud, Michel Cahen, and Domingos do Rosário (eds), The war within: New perspectives on
the civil war in Mozambique, 1976–1992 (James Currey, Suffolk, 2018), pp. 149–180, p. 151.MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 473
articulated, and at any rate, Frelimo abandoned most of these ideas when
it adopted the 1990 constitution 2 years prior to the signing of the peace
accord.
Rather, the differences that fueled (and continue to fuel) polarization
between Renamo and Frelimo are in some ways more intractable than
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ideology. Some are foundational and rooted in the succession crisis follow-
ing the 1969 assassination of the founder of Frelimo, Eduardo Mondlane,
which resulted in the expulsion of the heir apparent, Uriah Simango, from
the party; the selection of his rival, Samora Machel, as the new leader; and
Simango’s subsequent disappearance and presumed murder by Frelimo.
Layered onto the cleavage generated by this early crisis are regional, ethnic,
and religious tensions consistently fanned by both Frelimo and Renamo
leaders. Lastly the ways in which each movement has relied on rhetoric to
demonize the other plays a role in the polarization.16 As Colin Darch has
argued, Frelimo used its hegemonic power after independence to define
what it meant to be Mozambican. ‘The definition was very simple and
entirely logical: if you supported Frelimo you were Mozambican, if not,
you were something else’.17 Renamo militants were often referred to as
‘armed bandits’. For its part, Renamo has consistently portrayed Frelimo
as illegitimate, dictatorial, and a party of Southerners.18 These depictions
of the ‘other’ by both parties have solidified the rifts that generated their
opposition to each other in the first place.
The GPA institutionalized the organizational expressions of these cleav-
ages into Mozambique’s political system. Although it stated that political
parties should reflect the national interest and not be sectoral,19 the two
main parties in Mozambique represented the two former opponents in the
conflict. Moreover, rather than being strictly or eventually nonpartisan,
the GPA allocated seats on the national election commission by party.20
It stated that the composition of the armed forces was to be evenly divided
between the two groups, yet it allowed the state security forces (Serviço de
Informação e Segurança do Estado—SISE) to remain intact and answer-
able only to the President.21 It also authorized the head of Renamo to
maintain his personal security detail. The GPA established a code of
conduct for the police but did not call for the inclusion of Renamo forces.
Instead, the accord called for oversight commissions divided between
Renamo, Frelimo, and respected members of civil society to monitor abuses
16. McCoy and Somer, ‘Toward a theory of pernicious polarization’.
17. Colin Darch, ‘A success story gone wrong?’ p. 11.
18. Elisabete Azevedo-Harmon, ‘Patching things up in Mozambique’, Journal of Democ-
racy 26, 2 (2015), pp. 139–150, p. 140.
19. GPA, Protocol II.
20. GPA, Protocol III: 3.
21. GPA, Protocol IV.474 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
by SISE and the police.22 But these commissions were created late and
lacked sufficient enforcement authority.23
Moreover, despite subsequent constitutional revisions that de-concen-
trate power and acknowledge individual rights, Frelimo has leveraged its
command of a highly centralized state to reinforce its political and economic
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dominance. This is particularly evident with respect to the transition to
a market economy during the 1990s. Prior to the peace accord, the new
constitution of 1990 anticipated a shift from socialism to capitalism by
acknowledging private property rights and the role of ‘market forces’.24
Yet, Frelimo’s control over government since 1975 and its victory in the
first democratic elections of 1994 ideally positioned party members and
their families to take advantage of most policies regarding privatization and
the creation of a market economy.25
Since the 1990s, ruling party politicians have disproportionately bene-
fitted from sales of state-owned enterprises, joint ventures with the state
or foreign companies, foreign investments in existing or new projects, and
generous bank loans. Current and former Frelimo politicians and their
families are present in most economic sectors from trade to banking to
energy.26 With respect to loans to party loyalists, conditions of borrowing
have often lacked transparency, and repayment rates have been poor.
Donors who bankrolled much of Mozambique’s post war recovery have
largely turned a blind eye to such abuses owing to Mozambique’s high
growth rates up to 2015 and the significant decline in the rate of poverty.27
Access to windfall profits, commissions, lucrative trade deals, or even seats
on the board have not only strengthened the link between party, state,
and economy but also reinforced intra-party networks consisting of family,
friends, and other Frelimo partisans while marginalizing the participation
of Renamo supporters and ordinary citizens.28
Similarly, despite the guarantee of fundamental individual and political
rights (freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, etc.) essential to the
22. GPA, Protocol IV.
23. Richard Synge, Mozambique: UN peacekeeping in action, 1992–1994 (United States
Institute of Peace Press, Washington, DC, 1997).
24. Mozambique, The constitution of the republic of Mozambique (1990), article 41,
(15 January 2020).
25. M. Anne Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique: The politics of privatization, 1975–2000
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, reprinted 2008).
26. Pitcher, Transforming Mozambique; Edson Cortês, Velhos amigos, novos adversários: As
disputas, alianças e reconfigurações empresariais na elite política Moçambicana (Universidade de
Lisboa, unpublished PhD dissertation, 2018).
27. Paolo De Renzio and Joe Hanlon, ‘Contested sovereignty in Mozambique: The dilem-
mas of aid dependence’ (GEG Working Paper No. 2007/25, University of Oxford Global
Economic Governance Program [GEG], 2007).
28. M. Anne Pitcher, ‘Party system competition and private sector development in Africa’,
The Journal of Development Studies 53, 1 (2017), pp. 1–17.MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 475
exercise of democracy recognized in the constitution and the GPA,29 access
to the state has largely advantaged Frelimo at the ballot box. The party
relies on state resources to campaign and to control election outcomes.
Whereas the adoption of proportional representation (PR) as opposed
to a majoritarian voting system affords opposition parties parliamentary
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representation at national, provincial, and municipal levels, PR has largely
reinforced the bi-polarization characteristic of politics in Mozambique
since independence.
With polarization welded into several key institutions and the playing
field so heavily tilted economically and politically in favor of the ruling
party, both peace and democracy have been precarious. Yet, polarizing
dynamics are not predestined to become destructive. As Somer and McCoy
note:
Polarization, difference, and a certain dose of agonistic competition are
part of the democratic game and can even have democratizing conse-
quences at times. They can do so for example by clarifying the choices
facing citizens and helping political party systems to institutionalize.30
Mozambique demonstrated several of these more promising characteristics
for nearly two decades. Frelimo and Renamo offered clear choices to voters
and the party system stabilized. The two adversaries largely avoided a return
to open conflict by engaging in what Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
term ‘institutional forbearance’.31 They combined threats, bargaining,
brinksmanship, and compromise to wring political concessions from each
other such as greater inclusion on electoral bodies (a Renamo demand)
or limiting local elections to 53 municipalities while centrally appointing
352 local governments (at Frelimo’s insistence).32 Aided by the financial
support and intervention of international donors, a reliance on ‘informal
processes of elite negotiation’ proceeded in tandem with more formal
democratic procedures such as elections.33 Although interactions between
the two parties occasionally became violent, this pattern of protracted
negotiation and uneasy compromise characterized Mozambican politics
between 1994 and 2013.
29. Mozambique, Constitution (1990); Mozambique, Constituição da república de Moçambique
(2004); GPA, Protocols II and III.
30. Somer and McCoy, ‘Transformations through polarizations’, pp. 10–11.
31. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How democracies die (Crown Publishing, New York,
2018), p. 106.
32. Karl Kössler, ‘Conflict and decentralization in Mozambique: The challenges of imple-
mentation’ Constitutionnet, 20 December 2018, (11 February 2020).
33. Carrie Manning, ‘Conflict management and elite habituation to democracy: The case
of Mozambique’, Comparative Politics 35, 1 (2002), pp. 63–84, p. 64.476 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
Pernicious polarization
Since 2013, polarization has become more pernicious owing to several
developments. Lucrative legal and illegal economic opportunities have
raised the stakes for members of both parties. The discovery of approxi-
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mately 150 trillion cubic feet of natural gas deposits off the northern coast
in 2010 has made Mozambique the third largest source of gas reserves in
Africa after Nigeria and Algeria and twelfth in the world. Transnational
energy companies are expected to invest about $55 billion in the LNG
sector. If the sector becomes operational by the mid 2020s (which is now
in doubt), revenues from natural gas are estimated to result in double-digit
GDP growth rates and to produce a surplus in the fiscal balance by 2038.
But the magnitude of growth and what effect it will have on Mozambique’s
economy will depend entirely on complex local and international factors—
from responsible state management of revenues to the global demand for
gas to the long-term effects of COVID-19.34
Besides the considerable financial rewards that are likely to accrue to the
state and the ruling party from the development of the natural gas project,
Frelimo loyalists have benefitted from a host of illicit drug, timber, and
gem smuggling operations as well as financial deals.35 With regard to the
latter, particularly brazen was a $2 billion loan made to several businesses in
Mozambique and guaranteed by the Mozambican government. Ostensibly
the loan was meant to finance three projects: the modernization of the
Mozambican fishing fleet, the provision of coastal surveillance, and the
construction of shipyards. These were never completed, and the companies
in charge of them defaulted on the loans in 2016. According to the
indictment against one of the middlemen involved in the scandal, the
deal also included payments of around $200 million in kickbacks and
commissions to powerful Frelimo politicians including the former Minister
of Finance, Manuel Chang, and several intermediaries involved in the
transaction.36 As of March 2020, Chang remains in prison in South Africa
pending a court decision on his extradition to the USA.
The economic rewards that often accompany political power may be one
of the reasons that Renamo has insisted on institutional de-concentration
34. International Monetary Fund, ‘Republic of Mozambique’.
35. Simone Haysom, ‘Where crime compounds conflict: Understanding northern Mozam-
bique’s vulnerabilities’, The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime,
October 2018, (22 January 2020); Joseph Hanlon, ‘The uberization of
Mozambique’s heroin trade’, LSE International Development, Working Paper Series 2018,
No. 18–190, July 2018, (21 January 2020).
36. United States of America against Jean Boustani et al., United States District Court,
Eastern District of New York, CR 18 861, Filed 12/19 (2018).MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 477
and de-centralization, according to one scholar.37 Shifting power and
responsibility away from the national state allows provincial and local
politicians and administrators to have more control over policymaking and
to exercise greater discretion with regard to spending (and in theory, it also
enables voters to hold local leaders more accountable for their actions). But
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importantly, a shift of power and authority to provincial and local levels
potentially gives Renamo greater access to lucrative economic opportuni-
ties.38 Renamo is already involved in the mining and trade of gemstones
from an area under its control near Gorongosa National Park in Manica
Province.39 Such opportunities might increase were the party able to
occupy more offices at provincial and local level. Thus, the material rewards
associated with access to political power have elevated the importance of
winning political office in Mozambique in recent years.
Finally, changes in the internal dynamics of the two parties have height-
ened pernicious polarization since 2013. Here the parties demonstrate
marked contrasts. On the one hand, Frelimo now has elections (using a
secret ballot) for nearly every position of leadership within the party from
local cells to the central committee.40 Whereas greater internal democracy
has exposed intra-party disagreements at times, it seems to have solidified
party cohesion and reinforced the commitment of members to perpetuate
Frelimo’s political hegemony. This commitment acquired greater urgency
after 2013, when Frelimo’s vote share in both municipal and national
legislative elections declined by about 15 and 19 percent respectively.
On the other hand, Renamo has become more divided. First, the Renamo
leadership interpreted the formation of the MDM prior to the 2009
elections as a serious threat to its popularity in the central provinces. The
leader of MDM, Daviz Simango, had previously been endorsed by Renamo,
and was popular as mayor of Beira so his departure took a number of
supporters with him. Significantly, Simango has name recognition because
he is the son of Uria Simango, a founding member of Frelimo (and one
of the few founders from the center of the country). His departure thus
undercut Renamo’s origin story. MDM has not seriously challenged either
party at the ballot box, but its existence has altered Renamo’s election
tactics and chances. Aided by a Renamo boycott of the municipal elections
in 2013, MDM captured three mayoral posts. Its performance in the 2014
37. Interview with Sérgio Chichava by Raul Senda, ‘O governo corrigiu a precipitação da
CNE’, Savana, XXVI, 1316 (29 Março 2019), p. 5.
38. Ibid.
39. Supharart Sangsawong, Victoria Raynaud, and Vincent Pardieu, ‘Purple Pyrope-
Almandine garnet from Mozambique’, Gems and Gemology 52, 3 (2016),
(27 March 2020).
40. Frelimo, ‘Estatutos do partido aprovados pelo 11o congresso’, Cidade da Matola,
Província de Maputo, (1 October 2017), Chapter IV, Article 21.478 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
elections further unnerved Renamo: The party contested in every province
for the first time, capturing 8 percent of the vote and gaining 17 seats in the
Assembly of the Republic.
With MDM chipping away at its base and its credibility, Renamo’s
veteran leader Afonso Dhlakama suddenly passed away in 2018, prompting
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a succession crisis in the party. Members selected a new leader, Ossufo
Momade, at the party congress, but one faction disagreed with the choice
and has sought violently to displace him.41 Despite receiving support from
Dhlakama’s photogenic son, Billal Sulay, nicknamed ‘Obama’, Momade
was unable to quell internal dissent prior to the 2019 elections.42 As of
early 2020, this faction continues to engage in armed attacks against the
government and to contest the legitimacy of Momade’s leadership.
Somer and McCoy observe that polarization is relational: It may
strengthen or weaken depending on how parties and party agents interact
with each other.43 The contextual and partisan political developments that
have taken place in Mozambique since 2013 have largely foreclosed the
institutional forbearance and flexibility that characterized relations between
the two parties in the first two decades after the GPA. The ruling party has
used its majority on electoral management bodies to deny appeals regarding
electoral malfeasance and to stick rigidly to timetables regarding party or
voter registration even when challenged.44 Renamo too has been quicker
to rely on violence to get its demands met than in the past.
A major constitutional change in 2018 looks initially like institutional
forbearance, but it is not. At that time, the legislature acceded to a persistent
demand by Renamo and adopted a constitutional amendment permitting
the candidate at the head of the list of the party winning a majority of
seats in provincial, district, and municipal elections to become governor,
district administrator, and mayor, respectively. Previously the President
was responsible for choosing provincial governors, while the Minister of
State Administration chose district administrators, which meant that as
the incumbent party, Frelimo had controlled the selection process since
independence. Renamo anticipated that the reform would enable it to
consolidate power in key central and northern provinces where it believed
it had majority support and that it would de-centralize power away from
the national executive and legislative branches. But the de-centralization
41. Ben Machava, ‘Mozambique’s tense elections: How we got here’, African Arguments,
7 October 2019, (8 October 2019).
42. Deutsche Welle, ‘Eleições em Moçambique: Filho de Dhlakama é a nova estrela dos
comícios da RENAMO’, 24 September 2019, (30 January 2020).
43. Somer and McCoy, ‘Transformations through polarizations’, p. 13.
44. Alex Vines, ‘Prospects for a sustainable elite bargain in Mozambique: Third time lucky?’,
Research paper, Chatham House (August 2019).MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 479
law leaves key functions in the hands of the central state and also creates
a secretary of state for each province nominated by the President of the
country.45 This latter position is similar to the Chinese model whereby
elected village officials rule alongside a secretary nominated by the Chinese
Communist Party.46 As in China, its intention may be to thwart or hobble
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the transfer of power to elected local officials.47
Most importantly, there has been an escalation of state- and opposition-
sponsored violence. Approximately 364 clashes took place involving Ren-
amo or Renamo and government forces between 2013 and early 2020.
These attacks increased during the 2014 election and peaked in 2016,
at a time when Dhlakama was pressuring Frelimo to grant greater local
autonomy.48 Besides the loss of approximately 322 lives and the destruction
of property, the attacks drove around 12,000 Mozambicans to register for,
or request, asylum in Malawi by 2015.49
Equally troubling is the growth of a violent, radical Islamist movement
which dramatically increased its attacks from early 2017 and continues
to gain traction in the north of the country as of early 2020. Patterns
of recruitment and organization mirror the classic textbook model of a
rebel group. Movement leaders rely on marital ties, social networks, Islamic
schools, and the internet to recruit and organize local young people who are
often poor and unemployed. To attract adherents and build loyalty, leaders
tap into economic grievances and employ a mixture of religious teachings,
military training, false promises, and small-scale loans as inducements
to join.50 Financing for the movement is also intertwined with networks
involved in the illicit drug and timber trade.51
Two distinct patterns of violence indicate that pernicious polarization in
Mozambique has shifted from a bi-polar dynamic to a multipolar one. An
increasingly authoritarian party/state faces two opponents. The Renamo
versus Frelimo party/state dyad is weighted heavily in favor of the state but
45. Kössler, ‘Conflict and decentralization in Mozambique’.
46. Mary Gallagher and Jonathan K. Hanson, ‘Authoritarian survival, resilience and the
selectorate theory’, in Martin Dimitrov (ed.), Why communism did not collapse: Understanding
authoritarian regime resilience in Asia and Europe (Cambridge University Press, New York,
2013), pp. 185–204.
47. Kössler, ‘Conflict and decentralization in Mozambique’. Kössler, like others, praises the
change but observes there is much ambiguity and ‘possibilities for disagreement and abuse’ in
the current legislation.
48. Data compiled from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED),
(20 January 2020).
49. UNHCR, ‘Malawi to reopen former camp, as Mozambique refugee numbers grow’,
UNHCR website, 2016, (1 Febru-
ary 2020).
50. Saide Habibe, Salvador Forquilha e João Pereira, ‘Islamic radicalization in northern
Mozambique. The case of Mocímboa da Praia’, Cadernos IESE No. 17/2019 (Institute for
Social and Economic Studies (IESE), Maputo, 2019).
51. Haysom, ‘Where crime compounds conflict’.480 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
is still destructive; the Islamist insurgency versus Frelimo party/state dyad
is becoming more evenly matched as the conflict evolves. These unstable
conditions provide the backdrop to Mozambique’s sixth national elections
of October 2019.
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The 2019 elections and rising authoritarianism in Mozambique
The central claim of this briefing has been to demonstrate that Mozam-
bique’s already flawed democracy has deteriorated owing to pernicious
polarization in recent years. Before analyzing the ways in which polariza-
tion undermined the latest elections, however, I call attention to several
encouraging aspects of the 2019 electoral process. The purpose is to
show that political behavior and several practices in Mozambique often
mirror ‘ordinary’ electoral politics in those countries typically classified
as democracies. In addition, I seek to identify potential mechanisms of
restraint against the slide into full-blown authoritarianism and widespread
conflict.
First, having reached agreement on constitutional changes regarding the
selection of governors, district administrators and mayors, the two parties
signed a peace accord in early August of 2019. The accord included provi-
sions for the disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of Renamo
forces into the armed forces. Most observers and many Mozambicans
greeted the accord with cautious optimism.52
Having apparently resolved the conflict, the electoral campaign of 2019
demonstrated some promise that it might meet the minimum requirements
of an electoral democracy. Parties held rallies and launched appeals. They
mobilized voters and launched manifestos. Mindful of their drop in vote
share in 2014 national elections and more recently surprised by Renamo’s
strong showing in the 2018 municipal elections (when Renamo captured
eight out of 53 municipalities), the Frelimo leadership mobilized party
members from the highest to the lowest levels of the party administration
even before the official campaign began in August. Seasoned party veterans
led special brigades in each province to energize supporters and encourage
them to turn out on election day.
President Nyusi hosted rallies in three districts per day and even managed
a second appearance in some districts. Dubbed ‘red waves’ owing to the
prominent use of the color red, Frelimo’s US-style political rallies were
intimidating displays of red banners, red posters, and red shirts at each
campaign stop.53 Nyusi inaugurated roads and opened schools, blurring
the line repeatedly between state and party as he did so. Momade and
52. Vines, ‘Prospects’.
53. Jorge Marcos, ‘Nyusi lança onda vermelha na Zambézia’, O País, 16 July 2019, (30 March 2020).MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 481
other Renamo candidates also attracted large crowds in Zambezia and
Nampula, Mozambique’s most populous and most electorally competitive
provinces. However, Renamo’s internal disagreements were also evident on
the campaign trail.
On election day, polling in many places proceeded in an orderly fashion,
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and party agents from the two main parties were present at most stations
to oversee the process. The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy
in Africa (EISA) reported that at the polling stations monitored by its
observers about 51 percent of election officials and 28 percent of party
agents were women.54 Domestic civil society organizations, which were
nearly moribund at the end of the civil conflict in the 1990s, were active,
visible, and vocal. Sala da Paz, an umbrella group encompassing many
established NGOs in the country, including the Women’s Forum and
the Christian Council of Mozambique, deployed thousands of election
observers across the country. Like EISA and CIP, Sala da Paz also ran a
parallel vote tabulation (PVT) to record the results from each station just
after election officials posted the tally.55 The process was meant to ensure
that vote tallies could not be manipulated as they were reported up the
electoral chain from the district to the national level. Lastly, internationally
accredited election observer missions such as EISA, AU, EU, and SADC
fanned out across the country to observe the voting and tabulation process.
Yet considerable violent conflict, intimidation, and election rigging
before, during, and after the election overshadowed these ordinary
expressions of democratic practice. I start with the most egregious acts
of anti-democratic behavior and move down the scale. Following Sarah
Birch and David Muchlinski, I use an expanded definition of election-
related violence that includes not only conflict and killings but also
threats and intimidation.56 Whereas armed attacks or politically-motivated
assassinations clearly undermine several critical dimensions of democracy
such as the right to contest or participate in the electoral process, threats
and intimidation also discourage ordinary voters from exercising their rights
to join rallies, to voice their opinions, and to cast their votes. Many of these
elements were at work during the Mozambican election.
Despite the signing of the peace accord, clashes between Frelimo and
Renamo supporters, or the Mozambican police and opposition parties,
killed at least 44 people during the campaign period (see Figure 1). Several
politicians from different parties and civil rights activists were the victims of
54. Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, ‘EISA election observer mission
to the 2019 presidential, legislative and provincial elections in the republic of Mozambique’,
Preliminary statement, 17 October 2019, p. 7.
55. European Union, ‘Republic of Mozambique final report: General and provincial assem-
bly elections’, Election observer mission, 15 October 2019.
56. Sarah Birch and David Muchlinski, ‘The dataset of countries at risk of electoral
violence’, Terrorism and Political Violence 32, 2 (2020), pp. 217–236.482 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
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Figure 1 Armed conflict events in Mozambique by actor(s) involved, 2019
targeted assassinations, and at least 271 people were injured.57 On election
day, the head of Renamo’s Women’s League in Tete Province and her
husband were killed. Other opposition supporters were harassed, beaten
up, or imprisoned.
Particularly senseless was the murder of Anastácio Matavele, a respected
domestic election observer in Gaza province, north of the capital city of
Maputo. An investigation has been underway since October 2019, and a
trial date in the Gaza provincial court has been set for mid May 2020. At
present, the evidence suggests that special forces within the police carried
out the assassination. If that is the case, the Frelimo government could
potentially be implicated in Matavele’s murder, but the government claims
that the police officers acted on their own accord. Alleging that the murder
was a state crime and that the Mozambican judicial system is not interested
in justice, a civil society organization has threatened to take the case to the
African Human Rights and People’s Commission or another international
human rights body.58
In addition, at least 50 recorded attacks linked to the Islamist insurgency
group, Ansar Al Suuna, in the north of the country took place between
57. David Matsinhe with Sipho Mantula, ‘Campaign shows that political tectonic plates
are shifting in Mozambique’, The Conversation, 16 October 2019,
(17 October 2019).
58. Emídio Beula, ‘Procuradoria da República nega justiça a Anastácio Matavele’, CDD
Boletim sobre direitos humanos, No. 10, 15 de Abril de 2020,
(17 April 2020).MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 483
1 August and election day, claiming the lives of approximately 187 people.
As a result, ten polling stations in two districts in Cabo Delgado did not
operate due to violence, effectively disenfranchising approximately 5,400
voters and perhaps many more who have been displaced owing to instability
in the region.59 As Figure 1 shows, lethal attacks by Ansar Al Suuna have
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intensified since the elections bringing the total number of attacks in 2019
to 196 with 565 fatalities. The group claimed to have linkages with ISIL
and Al Shabab, but because it did not appear to include personnel from
either organization, observers initially argued that the claim was false and
simply intended to build credibility. As attacks became more systematic and
more well-coordinated in 2019, the view changed. Evidence suggests that
Ansar Al Suuna forms part of the Islamic State Central African Province
(ISCAP), an ISIL affiliated group that includes DRC, Mozambique, and
Somalia.60
Second, there were gross election irregularities that combined the suspi-
cious over-registration of voters and high turnout in provinces considered
Frelimo strongholds and underregistration of voters and low turnout in
provinces considered to be more competitive. Regarding the former, Gaza
province is the birthplace of several presidents and is consistently safe for
the ruling party. Before the death of Matavele, many civil society activists
and election observers had voiced suspicions that the registration drive
yielded about 300,000 more registered voters than the actual number
of voting age adults in Gaza according to the 2017 census. Subsequent
calculations suggest that nearly 500,000 additional phantom voters seem
to have been registered in Gaza. The influx of new voters resulted in the
allocation of eight additional parliamentary seats for Gaza all of which were
expected to go to Frelimo if past elections were any guide.61
Observers anticipated that the ‘votes’ of these phantom voters would
somehow end up in the ballot box. Matavele’s murder may have been
intended to silence these concerns, yet it only reinforced suspicions regard-
ing electoral manipulation. The anomalies in Gaza’s election results are
striking and seem to be explained by these phantom voters. Turnout for
the parliamentary elections was over 80 percent in 8 out of 14 districts,
nearly 30 points higher than the national average; 3 districts had turnout of
over 95 percent. Frelimo received over 90 percent of the vote in 13 out of 14
59. Zenaida Machado, ‘Insecurity in Mozambique leaves thousands unable to vote:
Authorities fail to ensure all voters can cast ballots’, Human Rights Watch, Website,
14 October 2019, (17 October 2019).
60. United Nations Security Council, ‘Twenty-fifth report of the Analytical Support and
Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL
(Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities’ S/2020/53 (2020).
61. ‘Special study on vote inflation and ballot box stuffing: 478,000 votes and 5 AR seats
were taken away from Renamo’, 2019 General Elections—Mozambique Political Process Bulletin
Special Issue, 90 (10 November 2019).484 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
districts. For his part, Nyusi won 95 percent or more of the vote in 12 out
of 14 districts.62 As civil society activists feared, the inclusion of phantom
voters worked entirely to Frelimo’s advantage.
By contrast, in Nampula, which is very competitive (and where Renamo
won several major cities in last year’s municipal elections despite the passing
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of Dhlakama), turnout was very low at 42 percent, 10 points lower than the
national average. Given the high stakes of this election, it is surprising that
Renamo supporters stayed home. Moreover, the high percentage of blank
and invalidated votes raises suspicion that Renamo votes were discounted.
Typically, blank or spoiled ballots average around 3–5 percent of the total
number of votes, but in Zambezia and Nampula, 10 percent or more of the
ballots were blank or spoiled in some districts.
Support for Renamo seems uncharacteristically low in these provinces.
The party won no district in Nampula despite winning the city of Nacala
last year in the municipal elections. Similarly in Zambezia, places like Alto
Molocue or Quelimane won by Renamo in 2018 instead voted for Frelimo.
Even in Moatize, the birthplace of Momade, only 38 percent of the vote
was for Renamo’s leader.
Third, election observers called attention to irregularities and acts of
intimidation that happened on the day of the election. The range included
ordinary oversights such as the failure to stamp voting ballots (which should
happen prior to voting) to a lack of the required number of officials at
stations.63 Yet journalists covering the polls on election day identified indi-
viduals possessing blank ballots and some election officials carrying boxes
stuffed with ballots. Before the vote count, Renamo supporters burned
down six polling stations in Niassa Province, alleging fraud by election
officials.64 Renamo then boycotted the observation of vote counting at the
district level, declaring that the ruling party had rigged the process.
Finally, the government refused to authorize more than 3,000 domestic
election observers, disrupting their efforts to watch the voting process and
final tally.65 The denial interfered with observers’ attempts to conduct
the PVT particularly in Gaza and Zambezia. As I have discussed, these
were important provinces to observe for different reasons. Nevertheless a
truncated PVT by 4,000 observers was sufficient to credibly establish that
irregularities had benefitted Frelimo.
62. All results referred to in these and the following paragraphs can found at CIP, Eleições
2018 e 2019.
63. European Union, ‘Republic of Mozambique final report’.
64. ‘Polling stations burned in Niassa’, 2019 General Elections—Mozambique Political
Process Bulletin 78, 16 October 2019, (18 October 2019).
65. European Union, ‘Republic of Mozambique final report’.MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 2019 485
Conclusion
Renamo’s internal divisions and Momade’s lack of name recognition may
help to explain low turnout and the larger district level victories by the
Frelimo party. Yet a victory of over 70 percent for Nyusi and the ruling
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party in the Assembly suggests that the party is strenuously invested
in building a ‘maximum’ winning coalition. Although it runs contrary
to the conventional wisdom in political science that governments build
‘minimum’ winning coalitions so that they can reward a smaller share of
supporters,66 maximum winning coalitions make sense in the context of
rising or resurgent authoritarianism. In the calculations of leaders from
Cameroon to Zimbabwe, winning by a large majority projects power
and authority. Although the path to a landslide victory was planned and
orchestrated by the top echelons of the Frelimo party, the magnitude of
the results was brought about by many individual, de-centralized, self-
interested decisions by party officials from the highest to the lowest levels of
the party hierarchy. It was these cadres who demonstrated their loyalty by
turning out voters, stuffing ballot boxes, spoiling votes, and intimidating
opponents.67 As such, the result forcefully expresses party discipline. It
reminds less reliable members of the importance of the party, and it is a
commanding show of strength to the opposition.
Unfortunately, the scale of Frelimo’s victory and the manner in which
many believe the ruling party achieved it is likely to worsen polarization
and entrench authoritarianism over time. With lucrative returns from the
production of LNG on the horizon, the ruling party is unlikely to tolerate
any challenges to its hegemony. For its part, Renamo may not easily
overcome its internal divisions but even if it does, the historic pattern of
interaction between the two parties is inimical to democracy. Additionally,
a dangerous threat has emerged in the north of the country and has been
gaining strength over the last year. Together these interrelated dynamics
will likely preclude the use of elections to hold politicians accountable or
to express voters’ true preferences.
If Mozambique has any chance of mitigating the deadly combination of
rising authoritarianism and violent conflict, it will not be due to the actions
of political parties, decisions by the judicial branch, or the response of the
armed forces. The mismatch in the strength of the ruling party versus its
opponents has already been demonstrated. Other state institutions such as
the judiciary, the armed forces, and electoral bodies are heavily politicized.
66. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, Randolph M. Siverson, and James D.
Morrow, The logic of political survival (MIT Press, Boston, 2003).
67. Joseph Hanlon, ‘Visão do editor: Descentralizando controle e intimidação’, Eleições
Gerais 2019—Boletim sobre o processo político em Moçambique, 82 (18 October 2019), pp. 1–2,
(30 March 2020).486 AFRICAN AFFAIRS
The real hope for peace and democracy rests with courageous civil society
activists and an independent press. The recent spread of COVID-19 into
Mozambique will no doubt disrupt their efforts, but their integrity and
determination offer a model for social movements and civil society actors
in other countries.
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