adminAlex Vine Correspondent
Mozambique’s 40th anniversary of independence on June 25 (today) is an important watershed. It’s time to reflect on the gains of independence and the mistakes.
I lived in Mozambique in the mid-1980s and have watched the country develop over subsequent decades.
Up to the 1992 Rome General Peace Accords between Frelimo and Renamo, which ended the civil war, independent Mozambique’s history was mostly about war and humanitarian assistance.
We forget, but really horrid human rights abuses occurred, the types of brutality that are more commonly associated with West Africa.
The 1995-2005 decade was marked by peace and impressive economic performance — the second highest GDP growth rates of any non oil-exporting country in Africa. Growth has continued since 2005 but it is far from inclusive and inequality is growing rapidly.
Over these past 40 years, Mozambique has been presided over by four presidents: Samora Machel, Joaquim Chissano, Armando Guebuza and since his swearing in this January, Filipe Nyusi.
Nyusi is as yet untested, but what I saw and heard in Mozambique last week was promising.
Few outside Mozambique realise that from January to March 29 this year, an intense power struggle played out between former president Guebuza and Nyusi over who would head Frelimo.
In theory, Guebuza could have remained party president until the next Frelimo party congress, scheduled for 2017.
A two-headed Frelimo was never going to work, though, and Guebuza badly miscalculated his support.
After a heated Frelimo central committee meeting, he found himself isolated and resigned as Frelimo’s president. Nyusi was shortly after elected to replace him.
In Maputo today, former Guebuza loyalists will go to great lengths to distance themselves from Guebuza, blaming all sorts of woes on him.
The fall of Guebuza echoes, in part, that of Thabo Mbeki at Polokwane in 2007. But more than aloofness and the arrogance of power explain Guebuza’s demise.
Mozambique in recent years has discovered world-class gas reserves which are predicted to make it the seventh largest gas producer in the world.
By Mozambique’s 50th anniversary of independence in 2025, this gas will have been harnessed and will be reaching export markets.
This will be a game changer, with massive infrastructure deals and development scheduled now for northern Mozambique. I believe that one of the reasons Guebuza wanted to hang onto the party leadership was because of this — and the business opportunities that it offered.
Likewise, the renewed targeted armed violence by Renamo veterans and government forces in central Mozambique between April 2013 and July last year was also partly about trying to get a cut of the gas action.
Expectations of wealth have risen dramatically across Mozambique as its politicians have talked-up finds of gas, coal and even oil (although the oil discoveries are far from proven to be significant).
Overlap this with a dramatic regional asymmetry, with Mozambique’s most populous provinces such as Zambezia and Sofala having the worst poverty indicators and you see why there has been resurgent opposition.
Inequality and a lack of government service delivery have boosted Renamo’s fortunes in four provinces.
And the other significant opposition party, the Democratic Movement for Mozambique (MDM) runs three major cities, Nampula, Quelimane and Beira.
In the 2013 municipal elections, it won over 40 percent of the vote in former Frelimo heartlands in Maputo city and Matola.
Guebuza had often tried during his two terms to strengthen Frelimo across the country. But sometimes too forcefully. He was not helped by growing inequality and an increased sense that a Frelimo elite around him were growing increasingly aloof and wealthy.
But Guebuza’s tough line against Renamo proved to be a tactical blunder.
It contributed to cornering Renamo’s leader Afonso Dhlakama and convinced him to resume targeted armed violence after 20 years of peace.
Although Guebuza had hoped military action would end the Renamo threat, Mozambique’s security forces were too weak to prevail and so negotiations were needed to reach a new ceasefire.
Some observers believe Renamo’s better results in last year’s election were a reward from the electorate for its violent resistance to Frelimo. I think it is more complex. Frelimo itself thinks that it did not campaign well, and was not helped by Guebuza already being lacklustre in his support for Nyusi during the election campaign.
Renamo credits its better performance to its having reduced electoral fraud by successfully politicising the election machinery — by persuading Frelimo to replace “independent” electoral commissioners with party representatives.
I think that Dhlakama finally showed he could be a real politician and he campaigned impressively for the first time, giving good speeches and convincing voters in key provinces such as Nampula and Zambezia that he could win and thereby persuading voters from Frelimo and MDM to return to Renamo.
The point is that getting the politics right is really important for Mozambique. After the celebrations of 40 years of independence this week, Mozambicans politicians will need to learn much more from past mistakes.
The country is changing quickly and big national decisions will need to be made about gas and other developments.
Combating inequality and finding inclusive growth need to be central to these plans — not narrow elite enrichment. Nyusi has appointed a good new technocratic government and, having won over Guebuza, will in coming months become stronger.
This is the moment for brave politics, sitting down with the opposition and hammering out structures that can help develop the country, such as accountable devolved provincial government.
A successful Mozambique is important for the region which will benefit from Mozambican gas and electricity exports. But stability and economic success would also prove that the decades of international humanitarian support and international development assistance have not been wasted.
Post-conflict countries need many decades of nurturing and politics can derail good gains — Burundi is a good reminder of that.
As Mozambique celebrates 40 years of independence, I hope its politicians reflect on how to do better politics.
Experience shows that — in general — good things happen slowly, while bad things can happen fast.
- Alex Vines is head of the Africa Programme, Chatham House and co-director of the African Studies Centre, Coventry University. He has just co-authored the report Mozambique to 2018 (Chatham House). This story first appeared on enca.com
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