Armando Guebuza, one of Mozambique’s richest businessmen and a stalwart of the ruling party and the country’s fight against Portuguese colonial rule, crowned his political career on Tuesday by being elected president in key polls.
Guebuza, who inflicted a crushing defeat on main opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama in polls to elect a successor to President Joaquim Chissano — who is calling it quits after 18 years in power — faces a boycott by his rival who has refused to accept the results.
The 61-year-old Guebuza on Tuesday hailed the results as a ”victory for the Mozambican people”, and proffered an olive branch to Dhlakama, saying: ”Only united we can overcome poverty and all the other difficulties our country is facing today.”
Guebuza is no stranger to controversy.
Earlier in his career, he led an unpopular resettlement programme that saw thousands of jobless people — officially called ”unproductive” — evicted from the country’s two main cities to the economically backward north. The programme was slammed as repressive and a costly failure.
”Mr Gue-business”, as he is now known, was born in the northern province of Nampula and joined the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) rebel movement at the age of 20 to fight Portuguese colonial rule.
In just two years, he climbed up through the ranks of the group’s central and executive committees and underwent military training in Tanzania, rapidly achieving the rank of general and using his military skills to fight bush wars.
After Mozambique won independence from Portugal in 1975, Guebuza sent Portuguese settlers packing, issuing the now infamous ”20-24 order” as interior minister that gave them just 24 hours to leave with 20kg of luggage.
He spearheaded an unpopular programme in 1983 called ”Operation Production” to move thousands from the two main cities of Maputo and Beira to the impoverished north.
It started at the height of winter and people often travelled with just the clothes on their backs while war raged and the country teetered on the brink of famine.
After founding president Samora Machel died in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986, Guebuza headed a committee investigating the deaths of 35 people, including the president, but it made no headway due to lack of cooperation from Pretoria’s then-apartheid regime.
When Machel’s successor, Joaquim Chissano, decided to abandon his predecessor’s socialist economic policy, Guebuza made his first foray into business. Since then he has built an empire that includes fishing, the media, construction and exports.
He was also one of the leading beneficiaries of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Chissano appointed Guebuza to lead the ruling Frelimo’s negotiating team at peace talks in Rome with the rebel Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo), now the main opposition party.
Those talks led to a peace accord in 1992 that ended 16 years of war that claimed up to one million lives and left Mozambique’s economy in ruin.
After a lengthy and tense nomination process, ruling-party bigwigs elected Guebuza in June 2002 as their presidential candidate for the upcoming elections in what was, for many, a surprise move.
In a recent interview, Guebuza said peace is now firmly rooted in Mozambique and the main challenge is to attract more investment and speed up economic growth to fight poverty and create jobs.
He pledged to attract ”as much investment as possible, no matter where it comes from”, achieve a two-digit growth rate from the present level of 7% and ”reduce the levels or impact of [the] two evils” of red tape and corruption, which are impeding foreign investment.
Guebuza is married and has five children. — Sapa-AFP