By César Neto
Mozambique is located in southeastern Africa, bathed by the Indian Ocean, and was a Portuguese colony until 1975. After independence, a civil war ravaged the country from 1977 to 1992. A quarter of the economy is based on agriculture, with 80% of the population engaged in subsistence farming. According to data collected by the UNDP (United Nations Development Program), which includes 193 countries, Mozambique is ranked 183rd in the world, with an unemployment rate of 71.4% and a life expectancy of 58 years, compared to 77 years for Argentina and 76 years for Brazil.
Since the announcement of the results of the elections held on October 9, which declared the victory of Daniel Chapo of FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) with more than 70% of the votes, Venancio Mondlane, the defeated candidate, has called for mobilizations against electoral fraud. More than twenty people were killed, including two members of the opposition high command. The Rwandan Armed Forces, operating in the northern region of Cabo Delgado, were seen suppressing the mobilizations.
Death of hip-hop singer Azagaia ignites the youth
Azagaia was an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist singer. His music denounced those responsible for the poverty and misery in which the majority of the Mozambican people find themselves. In one of his songs, he denounces his probable assassination by order of the FRELIMO dictatorship. It is true that he died of natural causes in March 2023, but the youth did not believe it. The funeral, which was attended by a large number of young people who sang and danced to his music, was violently repressed by the police. Tear gas, rubber bullets, and the beatings that ensued were all duly recorded on YouTube.
A few months later, on October 11, autonomous elections were held in 65 municipalities. FRELIMO won 64 and the opposition MDM (Democratic Movement of Mozambique) won only one. The obvious fraud provoked important mobilizations that deepened the situation set off after Azagaia’s funeral.
Presidential elections in 2024 aggravate the crisis
The Bonapartist FRELIMO government, which has been in power since 1975, organized a major electoral fraud that gave victory to its candidate, who obtained more than 70% of the votes. In second place was Venancio Mondlane, with 20%, and in third place was Ossufo Momade, with 5.8%. Mondlane is from the Podemos party (Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique) and Ossufo is from RENAMO (Mozambican National Resistance). The fraud was so blatant that more than a month after the elections, only Angola and China recognized the results.
Venancio Mondlane, a bourgeois nationalist who knew how to exploit the youth’s anger
The Mozambican youth have nothing to celebrate. Rather, they have a lot to fight for. Since Azagaia’s death and the fraudulent autarchic elections, youth have played a leading role. Venancio Mondlane, or VM7 -in honor of Cristiano Ronaldo-, as a good broadcaster and pastor, knows how to develop a line of dialogue with the youth, through a bourgeois democratic program with some elements of nationalism.
In fact, Mondlane does not represent a danger to the bourgeoisie, on the contrary, he knows how to channel the discontent of the people and the youth towards the elections. And further, with the fraud that occcured he only strengthened his image as a leader, and also reinforced the idea that the electoral solution is the only solution to the problems caused by decadent capitalism in a recolonized country.
Electoral fraud brings youth and popular sectors into the streets
Aware of the discontent over the fraudulent elections, Mondlane called for a general strike, which was quickly overruled by the union bureaucracy. Nevertheless, the demonstrations have been large and intense. There were instances of looting, businesses closed shop, and the strike took place in the absence of the union leaderships, most of whom were allied with FRELIMO.
The demonstrations, which have also been called general strikes, have developed in a very radical way. A policeman who participated in the repression of the demonstrations had his house marked and the demonstrators set it and his car on fire. In the city of Matola, a policeman was stoned to death. The joking youth, as always, wrote on their placards: “It was not the people who killed the policeman. It was a lost stone”.
More than 34 people, including youth, have been killed by police bullets since the mobilizations began.
The biggest mobilization took place on Thursday, November 7, which shows that the mobilizations are growing. Also the radicalism that has deepened the crisis is revolutionary.
The dictatorship manipulates the elections, represses with violence and proposes a pact with the opposition
Even before the election results were announced, opposition sectors denounced electoral fraud. FRELIMO, the party that has ruled the country for fifty years, has been accused of manipulating the voters’ list, placing party loyalists at polling stations, and filling out ballots. European Union election observers confirmed these allegations.
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, the current president who in in his second term, is responsible for the country’s death squads. He is also the orchestator of the electoral fraud, and on the eve of the demonstrations on November 7, he proposed a pact with the opposition.
On the possibility of an agreement that would put an end to the demonstrations, Venancio Mondlane reiterated that: “he is open to a government of national unity”.
This is not an isolated statement, nor is it taken out of context, since a week earlier Venancio had spoken “about the need for unity among all opposition parties, in the fight against fraud, and in the creation of a government of national unity”. Faced with the interruption of internet services, Mondlane showed that he did not intend to nationalize and privatize the telephone companies, but only suggested that: “If you want a relationship of mutual respect, if you want a civilized relationship, then respect the people so that the people will respect you. If you don’t respect the people, the people don’t have to respect you.”
Organize resistance. Create spaces for discussion and deliberation in neighborhoods and schools
After 50 years of FRELIMO’s Bonapartist government, people have little access to information about the real economic and political situation of the country. The vast majority imagine that a change of government will solve everything, and that the government is not corrupt. It is an illusion that Mondlane is reinforcing.
With caudillo methods, without the participation of the youth and the popular sectors in the decisions, Venancio Mondlane is leading the struggle to conciliation and defeat.
First, it is essential for the youth and the people to take the lead in the struggle, organizing resistance and rejecting any negotiations that merely aim to secure positions for Podemos leaders in a future unity government dominated by bourgeois factions vying for the scraps left by transnational corporations.”
In order to have “people in power” it is necessary to build an organization that fights for power
The main positive slogan shouted by the youth and popular sectors refers to the emblematic song of Azagaia called People in Power.
The willingness to fight and get the people in power show that Mozambique is living a revolutionary situation. This situation may or may not lead to revolution, everything depends on the disposition and understanding of the tasks that the mass movement must carry out. But this understanding will not come spontaneously; it is necessary, first of all, to build a revolutionary organization to lead the process, which is revolutionary in itself.
It is not enough to change the government. It is necessary to break the ties that bind Mozambique to the interests of Total, Chevron, Eni and other companies that are preparing to take all the gas from Cabo Delgado. We need a government that has the courage to say: these resources belongs to us. They must have the courage to say that China must compensate the country for the destruction of its forests and the illegal extraction of its best timber. Mozambique must stop paying the insurmountable foreign debt.
You cannot fight hunger just by fighting corruption. The fight against poverty will only work by putting an end to 50 years of dictatorial rule by FRELIMO, nationalizing the mineral wealth, building a leadership of struggles based on democracy for those who struggle, and a break with imperialism.
- Out with the FRELIMO dictatorship!
- Nationalization of the exploitation of natural resources!
- No confidence in the proposals of agreement between Filipe Nyusi and the opposition!
- For a government of the workers, the youth and the poor!
Article published in www.opiniaosocialista.com.br, 11/11/2024.
