It has been the most talked about issue since 12 October. Days after the holding of municipal elections, Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party declared itself the winner in 64 of 65 municipalities, stunning its most faithful followers and leading to restrained celebrations, which is uncharacteristic of the liberation party.
It was as if the party implicitly acknowledged that it had lost in more than one municipality. After all, parallel counting showed that Frelimo had even lost Maputo city and Matola, huge prizes for the opposition Renamo.
Much as there might be attempts to disguise and hide it, starting from President Filipe Nyusi’s silence on the matter, to the fair divers scandals surrounding the chairperson of the National Electoral Commission (CNE), Anglican Bishop Dom Carlos Matsinhe, to death threats exchanged by CNE members, the crisis is evident in the growing movement critical of Nyusismo in Frelimo, and in Renamo’s continuous demonstrations in the cities it claims to have won, and in public events such as when national team fans booed a unit of riot police and started chanting Renamo’s campaign hit song at a recent World Cup qualifiers match between Mozambique and Algeria.
Nyusi has not had it easy on social media where he is pilloried and has become the butt of jokes and insults in his own social media official pages, contrasted with former President Armando Guebuza, who is continuously fêted.
Considering some of the factors mentioned above, it is imperative that Frelimo yields from its stubbornness and distances itself from the 11 October electoral fraud.
Coherence
At some point of the Nyusi and Frelimo’s Secretary-General Roque Silva term, the party must show some form of coherence. It must show that is a party of peace, inclusiveness and patriotism. It must demonstrate the rationality it shouts in speeches and reflect the vision that animates its presidents. There is no meaning in dragging the country through an internal crisis, even more so almost at the end of a term.
Avoidance of warfare
Engaging in a tug-of-war with the opposition, internal critics, the will of the electorate and the facts could spread the conflict in the country (general instability due to precarious public security and focussed terrorism, public sector and generalised dissatisfaction due to the cost of living) to urban conflicts, expressed in more violent demonstrations with looting, riots, vandalism, not least because Maputo and Matola are claimed by Renamo with the risk of spreading to other parts of the country.
This spreading and misrule would give multiple advantages to the terrorists in Cabo Delgado and would invite the more radical sectors of Renamo to engage in armed confrontation by at least cutting the North-South main throughfare, and the Manica-Tete road, something Renamo’s military wing did with relative success in 2013.
Strategy
Strategically, the party should focus on preparing for the 2024 general elections, abandoning personal egos and agendas and any wounded pride caused by years of government ineptitude and a myriad of scandals in the municipalities that Renamo won.
Here again, Frelimo must focus on studying and understanding the factors behind this monumental defeat indepth and seriously. By doing so, it will demonstrate the maturity and patriotism that it certainly has and avoid having its institutional memory captured by a few.
Avoidance of internal crisis
Nyusi and Silva must accept blame and abandon the act of faith in the press, where they crucify people according to Nyusi’s whims. Instead, they should listen to the internal critics and smoke the peace pipe with them, not least because for some reason they are clamouring to be heard in a proper forum and not in a personal or ad hoc way.
The first step towards any serious rapprochement involves an understanding between the different parties and not ostracisation and detraction. Unity is needed urgently, and the hawks in the party must temper their appetites or Nyusi must control them to avoid aggravating a situation that only harms Frelimo.
Africanisation
The insistence on dragging the crisis for long transforms the whole country and not just Frelimo into another shithole, as former US President Donald Trump referred to it years ago: countries with chronic problems, run by groups with no ideology and orientated towards what they can get out of public resources and more concerned with maintaining power at any price – everything that Mozambique does not need considering the strategic importance it is gaining.
What is needed is political serenity on the part of all the political players and effective inclusion in a republican, nationalist and patriotic way to prevent conflict, as well as social peace that allows for balanced development. A country of everyone and with everyone.
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