OneWorld.net (U.S.)

Twenty-one parties and five presidential candidates are running in the legislative and presidential elections on 1 December, when nine million eligible voters are called to choose their lawmakers and head of state.

Despite the high number of competitors, it is fair to say that the contest will only really be fought between two groups: the ruling FRELIMO (Liberation Front of Mozambique), whose presidential candidate is Armando Emilio Guebuza, and RENAMO – Electoral Union, the opposition alliance of 11 parties led by the National Resistance of Mozambique, with Alfonso Dhlakama.

The new Party for Development and Democracy led by Paul Domingos, RENAMO’s former number two and one of the protagonists of the signing of the General peace agreement in 1992, could at best hold the balance of power.

It has been 12 years since FRELIMO and RENAMO signed the peace accord in Rome and ten years since the first multiparty elections; and the international community sees the peace process as an example of success. Though still one of the poorest countries in the world, Mozambique is showing important signs of growth and, having overcome the crisis, it is now taking its first slow steps towards development.

However, numerous factors still undermine the sustainability of peace and democracy; fragile internal cohesion and national identity, the growing politicisation of ethnicity and regional solidarity, the exclusion from politics of important sectors of the population, rising crime, especially in urban areas, and the so-called ‘regional asymmetry’, namely the difference in the level of development between the various regions.

However, a new and interesting novelty characterised the election campaign: for the first time the parties talked about their respective programmes rather than hurling insults at FRELIMO in a climate of real competition between the parties.

The governing party also made an effort in view of a strong opposition; even before the campaign got underway the presidential candidate and party secretary Guebuza and the incumbent President Joaquim Chissano increased their movement around the country and for the first time tens of newspaper supplements containing programmes and statements, as well as a biography of the presidential candidate, have been produced.

RENAMO has not done as much quantitatively, but it seems to have made clear progress in the quality of the speeches made by Dhlakama: he has talked competently about health and education, pledging not to lay off civil servants should he win and to fight corruption within the state apparatus.

Meanwhile, a crowd of unemployed youth has earned a few pennies selling t-shirts and caps bearing the symbols of the 21 parties, drums, corn on the cob, partridges, armadillos and sunflowers to the electoral train made up of land rovers, motorbikes and bicycles. Everyone has something to say to the television cameras or radio microphones.

The campaign has also been marked by a stand-off between the National election commission and the European Union over restrictions on access to final vote-counting. Despite intense media attention just a few days short of voting the disagreement has still not been resolved but the upcoming elections should nonetheless mark a further step forward in the consolidation of a process that has been underway for over a decade.

(Translation of an article by Paola Rolletta in Maputo)