Frelimo leader Joaquim Chissano can expect to win Mozambique’s presidential election, but the Parliament poll is another matter, writes Chris McGreal
Mozambique’s first freely elected Parliament spent four years wringing out a new Constitution. It was agreed that the flag, with its Kalashnikov and soviet star, would have to go, along with the national anthem.
Recognition of the new economic realities was to be entrenched though property rights. Most importantly, the president was to be stripped of many of his powers in favour of the prime minister and Parliament.
Renamo, the main opposition party and former guerrilla army backed by apartheid South Africa, had insisted on reform of the Marxist-era Constitution. But in August it changed its mind and scuppered the changes. Elections were coming and Renamo suddenly thought it had a shot at winning. It was no time to neuter the next president.
Opinion polls are banned in the run-up to Friday’s presidential and parliamentary ballot. They would be of limited use in any case because the only polling company in Mozambique is owned by a candidate for Renamo.
President Joaquim Chissano is the safer bet in the presidential race against his only opponent, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama.
But the ruling party, Frelimo, is on rockier ground in the parliamentary contest. It won only 44% of the popular vote in Mozambique’s first free elections five years ago, and this time a coalition of opposition parties has clustered around Renamo.
Frelimo has chosen the same election slogan it used four years ago: “For a better future.” Dhlakama has had fun with that. “People aren’t interested in a better future. They want a better present,” he says at every rally.
Yet things have changed for the better for many Mozambicans. Their country is heralded as one of Africa’s success stories. It has one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world and a booming capital city.
Beyond the economics, the end of a bloody and bitter two-decade civil war has permitted about two million people to return to their homes and rebuild their villages. Schools and health centres are multiplying. Four years of rains have contributed to bountiful harvests.
But peace for everyone and prosperity for a few has come at a price. Mozambique’s government no longer has any real say over economic strategy and many of its social policies. Those are decided by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It is, to some, a new form of indirect rule.
“We lost lots of our independence in making decisions,” said Bernardo Cherinda, a member of Frelimo’s central committee. “We are tied to the polices of international organisations. If we want to be funded, we have to continue the reforms. There was no other way. It was imposed. We had nowhere to go.”
Still, it has weakened Frelimo. This year’s May Day parade saw unions drop their usual slogans praising the ruling party in favour of denunciations of its economic policies: “No to starvation wages” and “Privatise in order to go bankrupt? Help, we’ve had enough suffering.”
A month earlier the government had raised the minimum wage by more than a quarter to about R200 a month. At the same time food prices have fallen because of increased competition.
But many workers have lost job protection, and tens of thousands have been thrown out of work by newly privatised companies. Workers at the state ship repair company protested that they had not been paid in a year after the firm’s floating dock sank despite repeated warnings from the employees about its poor condition.
Joaquim Fanheiro, general secretary of the country’s main trade union confederation, accuses the government of rushing privatisation. “About a third of the privatised companies are in crisis. They are paralysed or are producing below capacity. They have debts to their workforce and don’t have the resources to modernise,” he said.
Most of Mozambique’s cashew processing plants have been closed because of a World Bank-imposed edict forcing the government to lift protection of the local industry.
When Parliament responded with a Bill to try and save the industry by banning the export of raw nuts for processing in India and Vietnam, the IMF insisted that the government block the law.
There is no evidence that Renamo would do things very differently. Its manifesto is strikingly similar to Frelimo’s. And even if it were to win power, it would face the same IMF and World Bank strictures as the present government.
But Jafar Gulamo Jafar, Renamo’s campaign representative, argues that the government has been too soft. “When they were discussing economic goals nobody thought about Mozambique’s interests. We would look to the World Bank and IMF as our partners. You can’t act as if they are your enemy. But you can’t let them walk over you,” he said.
So why does Renamo have a shot at winning Parliament? Cherinda blames ethnicity. “The speech of a lot of Renamo people is tribalist. They say this man is not from their region, why is he in Parliament as a representative of the region? This works with uneducated people,” he says.
But there is also a lingering anger at Frelimo’s authoritarian past, particularly in some rural areas badly affected by its collectivisation of agriculture during the 1980s.
The prospect of an organisation that was created by Ian Smith’s Rhodesia and funded by PW Botha winning control of Parliament horrifies some Mozambicans. But there is also a general recognition that it could have been much worse.
While Angola continues to be blighted by war because Unita’s Jonas Savimbi will not accept anything less than total victory or defeat, Dhlakama was happy to accept the millions of dollars thrown his party’s way by the United Nations and to settle into the comfortable role of opposition leader.
Renamo’s record over the past five years has been mixed. Its discarding of the new Constitution was only one of a series of guerrilla tactics which have eroded public confidence in Parliament.
But even Frelimo considers that Renamo is now committed to elected government over war. “Renamo has shown a level of patriotism which we appreciate,” Cherinda said.
“We believe they are for peace, but they have no way to return to war. Apartheid is no longer there. Smith is no longer there. No one in the region is interested in a return to war. They would be very isolated.
“I think Renamo has changed. They use the language of terror just to frighten people but they have no intention of returning to war.”
Jafar agrees. “War? What for?”