Domestic Politics

The presidential and parliamentary elections on 1–2 December gave an overwhelming victory to Frelimo, which has governed Mozambique since independence in 1975. This was the third national multiparty election since the end of the war of destabilisation in 1992. Although support for Frelimo has been declining slowly, in the 2004 election support for the opposition collapsed completely, with Renamo (‘Resistência nacional Moçambicana’) president Afonso Dhlakama losing more than one million votes. Turnout was 3.3 m (about 43% of registered voters) compared to 5.3 m in 1999 and 1994. Frelimo won 160 seats in parliament compared to only 90 for Renamo. Nearly all observers, including Frelimo, predicted a close race similar to 1999, and the low turnout and collapse of the opposition came as a complete surprise. Equally unexpected was the poor showing of the first serious third party, ‘Partido da Paz, Democracia e Desenvolvimento’ (Party of Peace, Democracy and Development/PDD) and its leader Raul Domingos. He and Guebuza had been the two lead negotiators in the 1990–92 Rome peace talks, but Domingos was expelled from Renamo in 2000. He ran a well-funded and properly organised campaign but gained less than 3% of the vote and PDD only 2%, which was not enough for a parliamentary seat (which requires at least 5% of the national vote).

Frelimo's declining vote is linked to public discontent with widespread corruption and what is widely described as the ‘deixa andar’ (‘don't bother, let it go’) attitude of the Chissano government: both are contrasted with the integrity, lack of corruption and activism of the Samora Machel era. Grassroots resentment at the rise of corruption and a new self-serving elite was widely reported by Frelimo organisers to be behind the close election in 1999. Under the constitution, Chissano could have stood for one more term, but his bid was rejected at the 2002 Frelimo party congress. Guebuza was chosen instead, with the backing of the Frelimo old guard. This is not a generation change, since both had senior positions in the 1964–74 liberation war and Guebuza, at 62, is only three years younger than Chissano. But Guebuza is an activist on the Samora model, and he spent the year after the congress travelling extensively throughout the country, rebuilding the party base to ensure its loyalty and to ensure that it encouraged the loyalists to vote, which did occur.

Over the past 35 years, Frelimo has put party unity above all other goals: there have been no splits and, in recent years, no expulsions. Chissano remains on the 15-member political commission and campaigned for Guebuza. Frelimo has been careful to bring into the party and into government posts political figures who might be considered threats. For example, Luisa Diogo was clearly a rising star, and only joined the party in the late 1990s when she was already deputy finance minister. She became finance minister in 2000 and was named prime minister on 17 February, to replace Pascoal Mocumbi (who moved to the Netherlands to head the European-Developing Countries Clinical Trial Partnership).

Renamo, originally created by Rhodesian security services and promoted by the South African apartheid military, gained a local base of sorts during the 1976–92 destabilisation war. As part of the peace accord, and with substantial help from donors, it became the main opposition political party. But guerrilla leader Afonso Dhlakama kept extremely tight personal control and failed to build an effective party, and good organisers who were seen as a threat, such as Raul Domingos, were expelled. Furthermore, he ran a very negative campaign, stressing his claim that the 1994 and 1999 elections had been stolen from him by fraud, and ignored advice from sister parties such as the British Conservative Party to mount a more positive campaign stressing what he would do as president. The result was that many who voted for the opposition in the past saw no point in voting, since Dhlakama himself was saying it was pointless. Dhlakama was also hurt by a lack of money. Influential backers, such as the US, had decided that he had no chance of creating a real party that could win an election, and funding dried up.

Discontented electors did not opt for any of the 19 other parties on the ballot paper, none of which won parliamentary seats. The low vote for Raul Domingos, a known figure with a well-financed campaign, surprised most observers. One factor in the low turnout and low support for the opposition was that none of the parties presented serious alternative policies – and there is, indeed, little that they could do, with development policies and the budget largely set by the World Bank and the IMF. Indeed, Guebuza, who ran on a platform promising ‘change’ and often seemed to be running against Chissano rather than Dhlakama, seemed to be the only candidate to indicate a break with donor orthodoxy, when he suggested the need for a development bank. It would appear that Mozambicans have accepted Frelimo as the ‘natural’ party of government, rather like the ANC in neighbouring South Africa. There seems to be no serious political opposition on the horizon, and Mozambique appears to have become an elected one-party state.

Although the victory of Guebuza was clear and convincing, the election itself was widely condemned by international observers from the EU, Carter Center and the Commonwealth for fraud, misconduct and incompetence. The electoral register was a combination of 1999, 2003 and 2004 registrations and contained more than 11 m names (compared to a voting age population of 9.1 m), while computerisation of the register had been extremely sloppy (an example of the ‘deixa andar’ attitude that pervaded government) with many errors, omissions and duplications. After the 2003 local elections, the constitutional council ordered a clean-up, but only a rushed partial one was undertaken in the four months before the elections. The July registration update started late and missed many potential voters (especially in Renamo majority areas) because of lack of film for voters' photo cards and fuel for mobile brigades in rural areas.

The whole process was overshadowed by the obsessive secrecy of the National Election Commission (CNE). Former US President Jimmy Carter, who observed the election, said he had never seen anything like it in any election he had observed. Computer software for tabulating the results was written by CNE staff and kept secret. At the last minute, CNE ordered an audit of the software, which revealed major security lapses, including uncontrolled access to the database by senior election officials. The same thing had occurred in 1999, and no detailed results were ever published. In meetings with the press during the 2004 election, Carter raised questions about the 1999 results, and, in private, election staff admitted to using their computer access to tamper with results in that year. Discussions during 2004 made it clear that the actual results in 1999 must have been much closer than the official 200,000 votes victory margin for Chissano.

The chaos in the voters' role and the confusion caused by the hasty rewriting of the tabulation software meant that an official list of polling stations was never published (CNE said it was ‘a state secret’) and the computer database contained at least 600 nonexistent polling stations. The counting system is complex. Each polling station has no more than 1,000 voters and the count is done in the polling station in the presence of party agents and observers. Results sheets are then posted at each polling station and sent to the provincial and national levels for tabulation. At national level, CNE then makes ‘corrections’ entirely in secret and with no explanation. Computer chaos meant hundreds of results sheets were rejected by the computers and had to be tabulated by hand. In addition, the constitutional council revealed that 699 presidential results sheets and 731 parliamentary results sheets – nearly 6% of all polling stations – were not counted in the final tally because the results sheets had simply been stolen or had ink poured over them.

Nor had the voting process gone smoothly. The ‘Mozambique Political Process Bulletin’ estimated that people at more than 700 polling stations were unable to vote because polling stations did not open or opened very late, because they were in the wrong place, or because they had the wrong register books. This seems to have particularly affected areas that had voted for Renamo in the past. Election commissions at provincial and local level also proved as partisan in many areas. More than 100 independent domestic observers were refused credentials and hundreds of Renamo party delegates were refused credentials or expelled from polling stations and often from entire districts by force. This allowed ballot box stuffing in at least 300 polling stations and probably accounted for at least 100,000 of the votes for Guebuza. In some of the polling stations there were turnouts of over 100% and nearly everyone voted for Guebuza. The ballot box stuffing did not change the presidential result, but cost Renamo at least three parliamentary seats.

The fraud and misconduct did not provoke a public response because two parallel counts based on results sheets posted at individual polling stations confirmed the landslide victory. The domestic Electoral Observatory did a simple sample count from every 16th polling station (as best as could be located without a full list of polling stations) and 200 Radio Mozambique reporters read out results from individual polling stations live on the air for two days, eventually covering half of all polling stations. By early on the first day after voting, Radio Mozambique had confirmed the low turnout and huge Frelimo majority.

Armando Guebuza promised sweeping changes, including an end to ‘deixa andar’ and curbs on corruption. The government had to be agreed upon with the Frelimo political commission and there was extensive negotiation between factions, as well as a need to protect some allegedly corrupt Chissano cronies. The two top posts went to women – Luisa Diogo remained as prime minister and political commission member Alcinda Abreu became foreign minister.

The new government is much less Maputo-focused. Guebuza in early speeches stressed the need to prioritise development outside the Maputo area, and he created a new development and planning ministry. All ten governors in the previous administration were given posts as ministers or deputy ministers, and several other ministers have strong grassroots links in either party or provincial government. The new government has the style of Samora Machel, with ministers making unannounced visits and expecting civil servants to arrive at work on time, at 7.30, and with public meetings in which people are encouraged to speak out and criticise and complain. Guebuza and Diogo also immediately challenged the IMF by ordering the hiring of 6,000 more teachers and presenting to parliament a budget that breaks spending limits. The biggest question remained over the justice system and the willingness of the new government to deal with corrupt members of the Frelimo elite.

On other political matters, mayors and local assemblies took office between 5 and 10 February, following elections the previous November. For the first time, the opposition Renamo party controlled four of 33 municipalities, including the port cities of Beira and Nacala. A revised constitution was approved at a special parliamentary session on 16 November. It makes no fundamental changes but slightly increases individual rights, allows dual nationality and changes contested wording to confirm that a president can serve only two five-year terms. The justice sector remains one of the biggest problems, with widespread corruption and inefficiency. For example, Supreme Court President Mario Mangaze reported that at the end of 2004 the supreme court had a backlog of 107,047 cases. At current rates, this will take more than four years to clear, but new cases are arising faster than old ones are dealt with. Corruption, combined with the huge backlog, make it very difficult to enforce contracts, and this is now seen as a major constraint on investment.

The looting of two privatised state banks in the late 1990s continues to cause ripples. It is widely believed that the main beneficiaries were people close to then President Joaquim Chissano. Two people who tried to investigate the matter, editor Carlos Cardoso and the head of banking supervision at the central bank, Siba-Siba Macuacua, were both assassinated. With the informal agreement of most of the donor community, Siba-Siba's murder was never investigated. Cardoso, however, had many friends abroad, and in 2003 six people who carried out the murder were convicted. The alleged leader of the hit squad, Anibal dos Santos Junior (‘Anibalzinho’) was twice allowed to escape from the high security prison: on 1 September 2002 (after which he was tried in absentia and then caught in South Africa in 2003 by a team from the public prosecutor's office operating without the knowledge of the interior ministry) and again on 9 May. He was caught on 24 May in Canada and deported back to Mozambique on 21 January 2005, after the supreme court unexpectedly and without clear explanation granted him a new trial. Meanwhile, on 15 June seven people were sentenced for fraud for taking $ 14 m from one of the banks in 1996: the investigation and trial had been repeatedly delayed, amid rumours that higher level people were involved.

Foreign Affairs

Mozambique remains highly fashionable with the international donor community, which continues to increase aid. It has become an important stop for foreign visitors. Mozambique is one of 16 countries eligible for the US Millennium Challenge Account: it has applied for $ 150 m but no decision had been reached. However, corruption continues to be an issue. Most donors were prepared to turn a blind eye, but the Nordic states were not. After an audit, Sweden demanded that the ministry of education repay $ 400,000 that had been misused, allegedly in part for scholarships for friends and family of the minister, and for failure to use proper tendering procedures.

The then Portuguese Prime Minister José Manuel Durão Barroso visited Mozambique on 28 March, but relations with Portugal were somewhat tense, in part because changes in the Portuguese government meant the breaking off of the long-running negotiations over the Cahora Bassa dam, which is still 82% owned by Portugal. Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva had promised closer cooperation during a visit in late 2003, including plans to build a factory to produce anti-retroviral drugs. Chissano then visited Brazil from 31 August to 4 September. No progress was made on the ARV factory, but the Brazilian mining company Companhia do Vale do Rio Doce won a contract on 12 November to take over the Moatize coal mines, which have been largely inactive for more than 20 years. In return, it paid Mozambique $ 123 m and plans to export 13 m tonnes of coal a year to Brazil. China continues to build links with Mozambique. The Chinese constructed the headquarters for the foreign ministry, which were completed in 2004, and a Chinese company won the contract to expand the Maputo water system.

Mozambique's President Joaquim Chissano completed his one-year term as president of the African Union on 6 July. Because of his position, Mozambique hosted a series of international meetings. The NEPAD implementation committee met in Maputo on 23 May. Chissano was a speaker at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland on 23 January and on 2–4 June Maputo hosted the African Economic Summit, which is part of the World Economic Forum. The heads of state summit of the ACP partners of the EU took place in Maputo from 23 to 25 June. The summit's final statement was highly critical of the EU on a number of trade issues. And Prime Minister Luisa Diogo, in an opening speech, accused industrialised countries of “a lack of political will to attend to the genuine problems of the developing countries.”

Mozambique had a contingent of 200 soldiers with UN forces in Burundi and sent observers to Darfur in Sudan. Mozambique has good relations with all its neighbouring states. South Africa has become an important investor and the South African presence is increasingly notable in the south of the country. President Joaquim Chissano and the government have backed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, but have not said a great deal in public: Mozambique's leaders do not want to set a precedent for the overthrow of a long-standing leader. Privately, many in the Mozambican elite are fed up with kowtowing to donors and they respect Mugabe for standing up to Britain and the US.

Socioeconomic Developments

Economic growth was again expected to be over 8%, with inflation at 11%, according to the governor of the Bank of Mozambique, Adriano Maleiane. But commercial bank interest rates remained very high at 24%, which limited investment by those without access to credit outside Mozambique. The devaluation of the dollar (down 16% against the metical) helped keep inflation down, but caused problems for those export commodities priced in dollars, particularly cashew nuts and cotton.

Foreign investment remains high primarily in the minerals and energy sector, which generates income for Mozambique but, because of its largely enclave character, contributed little to development and employment creation. The Mozal aluminium smelter, one of the largest single private investment projects in Africa, is owned by the Australian company Billiton. It was located in Mozambique because of the port and access to cheap electricity from South Africa (actually imported at low prices from Cahora Bassa). Currently, the Mozal smelter produces 550,000 tonnes of aluminium per year, following the doubling of capacity that came on line in late 2003, but a second planned expansion project will raise this to 750,000 tonnes per year. Natural gas from an offshore field began to flow through a pipeline to South Africa on 26 March.

In October, the Irish Kenmare Resources began construction on a $ 450 m titanium mine in Moma: the mine could add 2% to Mozambique's GDP but will create no more than 2,000 jobs. The Australian mining company WMC has rights to titanium in Chibuto, but the project has been delayed by the inability to negotiate a low enough electricity price with South Africa's Eskom.

Management of the central railway system from Beira port was won on 5 October by a company which is 51% an Indian consortium and 49% the Mozambican railways company CFM. It will operate the line to Beira and take control of the line to the Moatize coalmines and Malawi, which was destroyed by South African and Renamo forces during the war of destabilisation in the 1980s. On 16 December, the World Bank signed an agreement for a loan to provide $ 104 m of the $ 165 m needed to rehabilitate the railway to the Moatize coalmines, and the Indian partners will provide the rest of the rehabilitation money. Agreement has also been reached on management of the northern railway system linking the port of Nacala to Malawi. The consortium has Malawian, Mozambican, US, Portuguese and South African partners.

Sugar is the only productive sector to be protected by import tariffs, and one of the other two sectors to show substantial growth. Four sugar mills have been rehabilitated with investment from Mauritius and South Africa, and employment exceeds 20,000. But the industry is threatened by changed EU import policies, which may cut the high fixed import price and make the industry unprofitable. Tobacco production has jumped from 2,000 tonnes in 2000 to 45,000 tonnes, making it the sixth largest export (after aluminium, gas, prawns and fish, timber and sugar). Tobacco producers are mainly peasant out-growers, but also include a group of farmers expelled from land in Zimbabwe who moved across the border to Manica province.

Unemployment continues to rise. According to the National Statistics Institute Workforce Bulletin, formal sector employment is said to have been 301,000 in 2002, more than half in small enterprises. However, registered unemployment has risen steadily, from 109,000 at the end of 2000 to 140,000 at the end of 2004. Telecommunications is slowly being opened to competition. The first private mobile phone company, Vodacom, began operations and had by the end of the year 195,000 subscribers compared to 550,000 with the state-owned M-Cel (although many of those are pre-paid and relatively low use). This compares to 80,000 fixed lines with the state owned TDM. For the first time, there is serious private competition for the state-owned airline, LAM. Air Corridor, based in the northern city of Nampula, now links most major cities. All 128 district-capitals now have electricity, and the power line from Cahora Bassa is being extended and is expected to reach the two northern provincial capitals of Pemba and Lichinga in early 2005. Pemba's oil-fired power station suffered a disastrous fire on 26 December, resulting in serious power cuts.

An estimated 14.9% of Mozambicans between 15 and 49 years old are believed to be HIV positive and AIDS now accounts for 23% of all deaths, and an estimated 400,000 Mozambicans have died of the disease. The ministry of health estimates that 1.5 m Mozambicans are HIV positive and at least 200,000 with sufficiently advanced AIDS could benefit from anti-retroviral therapy. By contrast, only 6,500 people were receiving anti-retroviral drugs by the end of the year and the number was planned to rise to only 20,000 during 2005. Spending on HIV/AIDS now exceeds $ 50 m per year. Malaria remains the other big disease problem, the ministry of health reported in April. There were 4.5 m cases in 2003, leading to 3,212 deaths in hospital and many more who died without being counted in rural areas.

Confusion remains about whether ordinary Mozambicans are better off and have gained from the high GDP growth rates. Data published in 2004 by the National Statistics Institute cover only through 2002, and show that, despite rapid rises in GDP, per capita consumption is actually falling from a high of $ 199 in 1998 to $ 146 in 2002 – the same level as at the end of the war of destabilisation in 1992. On 30 March, the government published its 2002–03 household survey, which showed that Mozambicans living below the local extreme poverty lines fell from 69% in 1997 to 54% in 2003. Income gaps are huge: the bottom 10% of the population accounts for only 2% of expenditure and the bottom 50% accounts for only 21%, while at the top the richest 20% accounts for 53% of expenditure and the top 10% spends 39%.

On 21 May, the national statistics institute and UNICEF jointly released new data based on a demographics and health survey. These show 41% of all children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition. Under-five mortality has improved substantially, falling from 263 per 1,000 live births in 1997 to 178 in 2003. Maputo city has the lowest poverty and under-five mortality, while Cabo Delgado in the north is worst. Access to safe drinking water remains low, increasing from 36% to 40% of the population over the last four years, according to Deputy Water Minister Jenrique Cossa. Adult (aged 15 and above) illiteracy fell from over 90% at independence in 1975 to 60% in the 1997 census to 54% in the 2002–03 family survey but education remains only a dream for many children – there are one million children between 6 and 13 who cannot get a place in primary school.

On 16 April, the government increased the minimum wage by 14% to meticais 1,120,297 (then $ 46.7) per month. The minimum wage has increased steadily, and faster than inflation, since 1996, when it was $ 23.7. The agricultural minimum wage was increased to $ 33.6. Removing landmines planted during the 1964–74 liberation war and the 1976–92 war of destabilisation continues: it was announced on 2 November that 220 m square metres had been cleared since 1996, at a cost of $ 189 m. However, corruption in the de-mining programme caused delays. Over 177,000 weapons have been destroyed over a nine-year period in joint Mozambican-South African police operations. Mozambique retains one of the smallest armies in the region and there is a strong bias against military service. Registration is compulsory for all 18 year-olds, but in January fewer than 10% actually registered.

A new family law was approved by parliament on 24 August, which in general improves the status of women. In addition to civil marriages, the law recognises traditional and religious marriages and de facto unions, which in particular means that a man is responsible for paying maintenance for his children and former partner. Radio remains the main source of information in the country, predominantly the government-owned Radio Moçambique (RM) and ‘Televisão Moçambique’ (TVM), which broadcast in all languages and from all provincial capitals, although there are now a number of private television and radio stations. The family survey published during the year showed that 50% of households had access to a radio, compared to 27% in the 1997 census. The Mozambican print media remains small but lively, competitive and free. The state-owned daily, ‘Notícias’, prints 13,000 copies per day, and it owns the Sunday newspaper ‘Domingo’ (circulation 10,000) as well as the sports weekly ‘Desáfio’ (4,000), so that the company is profitable. The private Beira-based daily ‘Diário de Moçambique’ has a circulation of 5,000. There are four private weeklies: ‘Savana’ (14,000), ‘Zabeze’ (6,000), ‘Demos’ (2,000) and ‘Embondeiro’. In addition, there were several Maputo-based faxed dailies and various local newspapers and community radios, largely supported by donor funds.