Teodósio Alexandre (21) spends his days knee-deep in garbage. Picking through rubbish at the dump in the Maputo township of Hurlene, he makes 30 000 metacais (about R10) on a good day, selling scrap metal.
He believes that Mozambique’s governing party, in power for 29 years, has done nothing for him. But he will vote for it anyway.
”Whether I vote for Frelimo or Renamo, it will be the same. No one is going to give us anything. But we’ve been living with Frelimo for a long time.”
As Mozambique approaches its third election since the end of the civil war between Frelimo and Renamo rebels, party loyalties run deep.
The government’s successes are evident in Xinavane, a small town in the cane fields 100km north of Maputo.
Since the end of the war, a sugar factory has been expanded and provides 5 000 jobs in the town. Trees, taxis and bicycles are decorated with the face of Frelimo candidate Armando Guebuza and the slogan ”the force for change”.
When people in southern Mozambique are dissatisfied, they are more likely to become disillusioned with politics in general than to transfer their loyalties to the opposition.
”Elections in Africa are a waste of time,” says a man who describes himself as a filmmaker, and imports roadsigns from South Africa on the side. ”We should be like Swaziland, where they just have their king.”
Loyal support for Renamo in the centre-north of the country will make the election a closely-fought one.
”In a country that lived through years of war, people’s preferences are based on where they were during the war,” says Inácio Chire, a political analyst at Eduardo Mondlane University.
The line-up of presidential candidates, too, suggests that politics in Mozambique has still not put the civil war behind it. As Frelimo’s last wartime leader, President Joaquim Chissano, steps down, the party’s candidate is Guebuza, the man who led its negotiating team during the 1992 Rome peace talks that ended the war. Renamo’s wartime leader, Afonso Dhlakama, is contesting his third presidential election. Renamo’s former chief negotiator, Raul Domingos, is running as the presidential candidate for his new Peace, Democracy and Development Party (PDD).
Analysts believe that PDD can cross the 5% threshold necessary for a seat in parliament. This, along with a close finish between the two big parties, could result in a hung parliament, and the need for a presidential run-off if neither Guebuza nor Dhlakama achieves an outright majority.
Behind closed doors …
Mozambican and foreign election observers have expressed concerns over a decision by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) not to allow independent monitoring during the final tabulation of election results that takes place in the provincial capitals and in Maputo in December.
”We want to be present during all phases of the process, including the final count,” said Eduardo Sitoe of the Electoral Observatory, a coalition of Mozambican civil society groups. The Observatory’s position echoes that of monitors from the European Union and the US-based Carter Center.
During the final tabulation, the CNE may annul the results from an entire polling station if, for example, the number of ballots cast does not equal the number of names crossed off the voters’ roll. The PDD and Renamo have both accused Frelimo appointees, who dominate the CNE, of planning to manipulate the results.
CNE spokesperson Felipe Mandlati told the Mail & Guardian that the commission’s position reflected a new electoral law that came into force only after the last general election.
The final tabulation aside, Mozambique’s election process has been praised as a model of fairness and transparency. While observers have been called to investigate allegations of violence or threats, they do not see systematic intimidation. Sitoe described this year’s campaign as ”less tumultuous” than those of previous years.
In addition to the independent observers, each candidate may nominate two representatives to each of the 60 000 voting stations.
The observers will accompany the process from the opening of the ballot boxes to the delivery of results to provincial headquarters. They have the right to scrutinise every ballot slip, and they plan to produce their own parallel vote counts to check against the official results.
According to Mandlati, the biggest challenge is logistical. ”The road infrastructure is very weak. It’s difficult to transport personnel and materials to the stations.”
There are no plans to transport voters, and in a country the size of Mozambique, even 60 000 polling stations are spread thin.
”In principle, people should not have to walk more than 10 or 20 km, but it’s not easy to ensure that,” Mandlati said. — Justin Pearce in Maputo