(Bloomberg) -- Waves of unrest have swept through Mozambique since a disputed Oct. 9 election, with security forces accused of killing dozens of protesters. The government was already grappling with an Islamic State-linked insurgency in the north of the country. One of the world’s poorest nations, Mozambique hasn’t been this unstable since a 1977-1992 civil war in which more than 1 million people died. The violence has disrupted the economy and risks further delaying the start of natural gas exports seen as key to the country’s future.
Why was the October election controversial?
Election-rigging claims are nothing new in the southeast African nation, where the ruling Mozambique Liberation Front, known by its Portuguese acronym Frelimo, has been in power since independence from Portugal 49 years ago. But the backlash from the population this time around has been unprecedented.
Even before voting day, there were concerns that the electoral authorities had registered more voters than the number of people old enough to cast ballots, and had made registration difficult for opposition supporters. European Union observers flagged signs of ballot-box stuffing and manipulation of results.
There were large discrepancies in the number of ballots cast in the three simultaneous elections — for the presidency, the national legislature and provincial assemblies. And when the Constitutional Council validated the result showing a win for the ruling party, it reduced the size of the victory without explaining its methodology, adding to doubts about the vote.
What triggered the unrest?
Protests broke out on Oct. 21 after unknown killers gunned down the lawyer of the leading opposition candidate. They intensified three days later after the National Electoral Commission announced that the governing party’s presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, had secured 71% of the vote.
Opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, an evangelical pastor and former lawmaker, rejected as fraudulent the official results that ultimately gave him 24% of the vote, and said a parallel vote count showed he had won. Mondlane fled the country on the first day of the demonstrations and began using internet livestreams to encourage and organize the protests.
Claims of police brutality — including the use of live bullets to disperse protesters — further inflamed tensions.
What are the protesters demanding?
Their main goal has been to get the authorities to formally recognize Mondlane as the election winner. The protesters are also driven by dislike of Frelimo, and some of the party’s offices have been torched. Police stations and government offices have also been targeted.
The demonstrations come against a backdrop of worsening poverty over the past decade that’s widened the gap between rich and poor. Mozambique is now one of the world’s most unequal societies, and around one in three school leavers can’t find a job or some form of training. The median age is less than 18, and millions of people are unemployed.
Mondlane has also demanded that citizens be given a bigger share of the nation’s abundant natural resources. The country’s mines have been another target for the protesters.
What could turn things around?
A negotiated solution could be one way to solve the crisis. But as incumbent President Filipe Nyusi prepares to hand over power to Chapo in mid-January, neither has shown much enthusiasm for starting a dialogue.
Mondlane has signaled an openness to international mediation, which could come under the auspices of a regional bloc of which Mozambique is a member: the Southern African Development Community. For now, he’s in an undisclosed location outside the country and fears arrest — or worse — if he returns.
Electoral reform would be high on the list of opposition demands in any talks. The ruling party controls the authorities that oversee elections in Mozambique, which damages their credibility. There is little transparency in how the Constitutional Council validates the final results, which are not subject to appeal.
What does it all mean for the region’s economy?
The unrest has interrupted electricity supplies to Zambia and blocked one of the world’s most important trade corridors for chrome that’s used to make stainless steel. Thousands of citizens have fled to neighboring Eswatini and Malawi.
The turmoil has stretched the capacity of Mozambican security forces who were already fighting the Islamic State-linked insurgency in the northeastern Cabo Delgado province that’s home to some of Africa’s biggest natural gas deposits.
That conflict led to the suspension in early 2021 of a project led by France’s TotalEnergies SE to export liquefied natural gas from Mozambique. The latest protests could make the start of LNG exports an even more distant prospect.
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