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A protester looks on near a burning barricade during a "national shutdown" against the election outcome, in Maputo, Mozambique, on Nov. 7, 2024.
Police and soldiers vs. protesters in Mozambique
The published results of the election found that FRELIMO’s Daniel Chapo won nearly 71% of the vote. His main opponent, independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, was given 20.3%, and opposition party RENAMO’s candidate, Ossufo Momade, came in third with 5.8%.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned on Wednesday that police and soldiers patrolling the streets of Maputo may be increasing tensions to dangerous levels. “The police must refrain from using unnecessary or disproportionate force and ensure that they manage protests in line with Mozambique’s international human rights obligations,” Türk said.
Fearing the spread of unrest, South Africa has closed, partially reopened, and then reclosed its border with Mozambique this week.
Palestinian baby Reem Abu Hayya, 8 months old, is being cared for by her grandmother in the family home in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis Palestinian baby Reem Abu Hayya, 8 months old, is being cared for by her grandmother in the family home in the town of Abasan al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 29, 2024.
Hard Numbers: US asks Israel to explain ‘horrifying’ airstrike, Deadly post-election violence in Mozambique, Washington Post hemorrhaging subscribers, Sudan civil war continues to fuel displacement
93: The US is asking Israel for answers regarding a Tuesday airstrike on a residential building in northern Gaza that left at least 93 Palestinians dead or missing. A State Department spokesperson described the strike as a “horrifying incident with a horrifying result."
11: Security forces in Mozambique killed at least 11 people last week amid protests sparked by a disputed presidential election, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The rights group called for an investigation into the “excessive use of force” against demonstrators in the southern African nation. Daniel Chapo, candidate of the ruling Frelimo party, was declared the winner but observers said the election was not free and fair.
250,000: The Washington Post reportedly lost over 250,000 subscribers in recent days in the face of backlash over owner Jeff Bezos’ decision to block the paper from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. This represents roughly 10% of the paper’s paid circulation.
14 million: Over 14 million people are displaced in Sudan, the head of the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday, with roughly 11 million internally displaced and over three million who have crossed borders. Sudan has been consumed by a brutal civil war since April 2023, which has fueled a devastating humanitarian crisis and seen waves of people flee their homes.A casket carrying the body of murdered Podemos lawyer Elvino Dias leaves the Paroquia Nossa Senhora do Rosario church during his funeral, in Laulane township, in Maputo, Mozambique, October 23, 2024.
Miscounts and murder mar Mozambique’s election
The resource-rich Southern African nation of 35 million is on a knife’s edge this week, awaiting official results of the Oct. 9 presidential and parliamentary elections.
So far, things are not looking good.
Preliminary results show the candidate of the long-ruling Frelimo party in the lead, but EU election observers say there were irregularities in the vote count. Supporters of opposition leader Venancio Mondlane clashed with riot police on the streets of Maputo, the capital, on Monday, after a weekend in which Mondlane’s lawyer and another prominent opposition figure were shot dead in a car. The two men had pledged hours earlier to officially challenge the legitimacy of the election at the constitutional court. Coincidence? Mondlane doesn’t think so: He has blamed the government for the murder.
Frelimo, in power for half a century, has been accused of vote rigging and human rights abuses in the past, and rights groups said the party had clamped down on dissent ahead of the vote.
At stake: Two-thirds of Mozambicans live in extreme poverty, and the country is struggling to eradicate a localized jihadist insurgency that has been blocking expansive natural gas developments. Election-related violence could make things worse on both counts.Supporters of Daniel Chapo, leader and presidential candidate of the ruling Frelimo party attend the final rally campaign ahead of the national election in Matola, Mozambique October 6, 2024.
Mozambique votes as insurgency blocks oil riches
The resource-rich southeast African nation of 35 million people heads into national legislative and presidential elections on Wednesday in which the party that has run the sub-Saharan country for half a century faces its stiffest challenge in years.
Who’s running? The incumbent FRELIMO party, a leftist former rebel group that has governed since independence from Portugal in 1975, is running party general secretary Daniel Chapo, a former provincial governor.
His main opponent is independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, a charismatic one-time banker who broke away from the main opposition party last year. Mondlane has capitalized on frustration with Frelimo’s half-century rule and drawn outsized support from young people.
In a first, both of the top candidates were born after – or just months before – independence.
What’s at stake? The key challenge is to raise living standards in a country where nearly two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty. A big part of that will be quashing a Jihadist insurgency that has halted a series of huge natural gas projects that could transform the country by opening export markets in South and East Asia.
Who is likely to win? Frelimo looks positioned to win, say experts, owing to its incumbency advantages and the possibility that opposition to Chapo will be split.
For more, see our Viewpoint on the election by Eurasia Group Africa expert Ziyanda Stuurmanhere.
Soldiers from the Rwandan security forces are seen near the Afungi natural gas site in Mozambique on Sept. 22, 2021.
Viewpoint: Mozambique holds elections amid renewed hopes for LNG projects
Mozambicans will head to the polls on Wednesday, Oct. 9, amid improving prospects for ending an insurgency in the North of the country and completing several lucrative natural gas projects. Frelimo, which has ruled Mozambique for most of the period since it gained independence from Portugal in 1975, is expected to comfortably win the parliamentary and presidential elections.
We spoke with Eurasia Group expert Ziyanda Stuurman to learn what concerns are animating voters and how the next government will deal with the country’s challenges.
What are the main issues in these elections?
As in many other countries, the cost of living in Mozambique has really gone up in recent years. In the aftermath of the pandemic, inflation peaked in September 2022 and has eased since then, but prices and borrowing costs have remained high. Many people have struggled to get access to locally produced food, an issue that has been exacerbated by several cyclones and hurricanes. Moreover, the country was forced to seek assistance from the IMF in 2022 and agreed to a program that required it to slash its public wage bill, resulting in deep salary and benefit cuts for doctors, teachers, and other public employees.
How about the insurgency in the North – has that factored into the campaign?
I would say the worst of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado is probably behind us, after peaking between 2017 and 2019. With the assistance of foreign troops sent by several neighboring countries, the government has made strides in stabilizing the situation, and the candidates for president are now talking about what they would do to put an end to the insurgency. The region is the site of several large LNG projects that have the potential to turbocharge the Mozambican economy, but that were halted by their foreign operators when the fighting came too close in 2021. The average Mozambican wants to see the benefits from these projects, which have been talked about for their potential to catalyze growth for at least a decade.
Frelimo appears likely to hold on to power – how do you explain its enduring dominance?
Following a period of civil war from 1977 to 1992, Frelimo won the country’s first-ever democratic elections in 1994 in a fairly close contest with the opposition group Renamo. Since then, however, Renamo has splintered, and no new party has emerged capable of strongly challenging Frelimo. The ruling party has been able to acquire decades of governing experience that have conferred a strong incumbency advantage – an advantage that it has leaned into in undemocratic ways. It has been credibly accused, especially in more recent election cycles, of manipulating election results.
What will be the most important tasks for the next government?
Ending the insurgency and boosting the economy. Bringing long-lasting peace to Cabo Delgado is important not just for the resumption of the gas projects, but for the socio-economic development of what is probably the country’s poorest region. Daniel Chapo, Frelimo’s presidential candidate, has promised to enter peace talks with the remaining insurgents, who are thought to number 300 at most, down from a high of 2000 at the peak of the conflict. On the economic front, as the country waits for the new gas projects to come online, it will need to stimulate investment in the country’s main economic sectors – agriculture, mining, and light manufacturing.
So, who are these insurgents, and why have they been so difficult to root out?
It’s kind of a mixed bag. Some of them are former leaders and members of separatist movements in Tanzania, some are connected with the Islamist group Al-Shabab that was active in Somalia, and the majority are disaffected locals who feel excluded from public services and economic development. They have financed their operations with illicit activities such as kidnappings for ransom, particularly in the south of the country and the capital Maputo. They’ve been difficult to root out because the terrain in Cabo Delgado and its neighboring provinces is heavily forested and difficult to penetrate for the government forces, who lacked the necessary capacity to effectively fight in these conditions. In mid-2021, a group of neighboring countries, including South Africa and Rwanda, dispatched several thousand troops to support the Mozambican forces. The foreign mission has been scaled back this year but many of the troops remain.
What is the status now of the LNG projects in Cabo Delgado and what is their importance for the country’s development?
The two biggest projects are run by Total and Exxon, and Total CEO Patrick Pouyanné has been quite vocal recently about the company’s commitment to its Cabo Delgado venture. He is planning to visit Mozambique at the end of the month to meet with the next president, so it really sounds like Total is on the cusp of announcing a resumption of construction, probably by early 2025 at the latest. Still, it would take a couple of years before the facilities are ready to start producing gas. The situation of the Exxon project is somewhat different. I expect it will also resume, though it might be scaled back somewhat. The two projects have the potential to generate an estimated $50 billion in combined revenue over their lifetimes, which would be transformational for a country whose annual economic output is currently about $16 billion.
Edited by Jonathan House, Senior Editor at Eurasia Group.
Hard Numbers: Biden’s big Taiwan mouth, foreign troops in Mozambique, Putin’s approval, unsold cars in Caracas
2: For the second time, President Joe Biden has signaled that America would respond with military force to defend Taiwan if China invades, reversing more than four decades of US "strategic ambiguity" on the issue. The White House immediately walked the comment back (again), but Beijing has taken note.
24: That's the number of countries that have sent troops to fight a jihadist insurgency in northern Mozambique since October 2017. Rwandan forces managed to retake two key ports in recent months, but fighting in the resource-rich Cabo Delgado region continues.
1: Vladimir Putin’s approval rating fell by all of one point over the last month. Despite sanctions, war, and Russia’s increasing isolation, 83% of Russians surveyed by the Levada Center still approve of their president’s leadership. Do these numbers mean much? Watch our interview with Levada boss Lev Gudkov.
1,886: No one cares about cheap gas when they can't afford to purchase a car or truck due to hyperinflation. Venezuelans bought only 1,886 light vehicles last year, a 99% drop from the country’s peak in 2006-2007, despite lifting a ban on importing used vehicles in 2019.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
What We're Watching: Suga's post-Olympics approval, Taliban take capitals, Mozambique and Rwanda vs jihadists, US offers Brazil NATO partnership
Suga's collapsing popularity: For the past 18 months, debate within Japan and around the world has raged over whether Japan could and should stage the Olympic Games amid a pandemic. For better and for worse, the Games were held and are now closed. So, what's the political fallout for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who has governed in a state of near-constant crisis, and for his government? The good news for them is that a new poll from Asahi Shimbun, released last weekend, found that 56 percent said it was a good idea to hold the Games, and just 32 percent said it was a mistake. The bad news is that approval for Suga's government has fallen to just 28 percent, the lowest of his time in office. A slow vaccination rollout continues to cost him.This fall, Suga's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will decide when to hold both its party leadership race and the next national general election. The LDP will likely remain in power, but Suga's future is now very much in doubt.
Taliban take key capitals: As the US continues to withdraw forces from Afghanistan, the Taliban are overrunning ever-wider swaths of territory, including urban areas that they haven't controlled in decades. Over this past weekend alone, the jihadist insurgents swept through no fewer than six provincial capitals, including the strategically important northern city of Kunduz. The US has mounted fresh airstrikes — including with a few old B-52s — to help the beleaguered Afghan security forces hold the line, but with that support reportedly scheduled to stop at the end of August, the writing is on the wall: the Taliban are on their way back to controlling Afghanistan. As we recently wrote, Afghanistan's neighbors are bracing for a growing rush of refugees fleeing the war-ravaged country, and the EU, just a few years removed from the last refugee crisis, is watching warily as well.
Mozambique and Rwanda retake jihadist hotspot: Mozambican and Rwandan troops this week gained control of the gas-rich port city of Mocimboa da Praia in northern Mozambique. For more than three years, Islamist fighters loosely aligned with the Islamic State, have waged a brutal insurgency in the northern Cabo Delgado province. Mocimboa da Praia, the site of one of Africa's biggest liquefied natural gas projects, has become a jihadist hub in recent years. Fighting has killed more than 3,100 Mozambicans and displaced 800,000 more. Last month, Rwanda sent 1,000 troops to support Mozambique's army, and the military alliance — which also includes support from Zimbabwe, Angola, and Botswana — managed to retake control of the port, airport, and hospital in Mocimboa da Praia. This massive feat comes after the European Union said last month that it will establish a new military mission in Mozambique to help the government push back against the increasingly brazen Islamic insurgency. Still, analysts warn, the Mozambican government needs to remain vigilant because the militants might still regroup in the months ahead.
US offers NATO partnership to Brazil? During a visit to Brazil last week, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan reportedly told President Jair Bolsonaro that if he bans the Chinese tech company Huawei from building 5G networks in his country, the US would push for Brazil to become a NATO global partner. That's not quite full membership, but it would give Brazil preferential access to arms purchases and other security perks with the world's most powerful military alliance. According to the Brazilian daily Folha de São Paulo, which broke the story, the move is a bid by Washington to get Brazil on its side in a global push to squeeze Chinese tech firms out of 5G infrastructure. But Folha also reports that there are deep divisions within the Brazilian military about this: some higher-ups are implacably hostile towards China, while others say that Brasilia shouldn't ruin relations with Brazil's largest trade partner. Currently the only Latin American country that enjoys a NATO partnership is close US-ally Colombia.
What We're Watching: Iraqi COVID ward burns, the EU's Mozambique mission, Bulgaria's punk-rock leader
Iraqi COVID ward burns: Clashes broke out Monday between police and relatives of patients at the al-Hussein hospital in Nasiriyah (Iraq's fourth largest city) who were killed when a fire broke out in the COVID-19 isolation ward. At least 92 people died, and dozens were injured when a the shoddy ward, constructed a few months ago to manage the growing COVID outbreak, became ablaze. (Iraq's Health Ministry has still not confirmed the cause of the fire.) This disaster comes as the COVID crisis has severely strained the country's already-feeble healthcare system, leading to more than 1.4 million infections and at least 17,000 COVID deaths nationwide (likely a gross undercount). Monday's blaze comes months after a deadly fire at a Baghdad hospital killed at least 82 people. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has ordered the suspension and arrest of health and defense officials in Nasiriya, but it's unclear whether this move will be enough to placate furious Iraqis who are rising up after years of neglect, economic stagnation, war, and now a pandemic. Indeed, many Iraqis who have hit the streets in recent months are asking a simple question: what do we have to lose? Only 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has received one dose of COVID vaccine.
EU's Mozambique mission: The EU said Monday that it will establish a new military mission in Mozambique to help the government push back against an increasingly brazen Islamic insurgency that's taken over large swaths of territory in the country's northeast. Portugal, Mozambique's former colonizer, is already training Mozambican troops and will head the mission on the ground. Like the EU operation launched in Mali in 2013, European troops will train soldiers and help rebuild infrastructure, but they will not engage in combat missions. It's unclear whether the 27-member bloc will send military equipment. For more than three years, fighters belonging to the al-Shabaab militant group that claim loose ties to the Islamic State have waged a brutal insurgency in Cabo Delgado province that has killed thousands and displaced more than 700,000 people. Earlier this year, US Special Forces soldiers began training Mozambican troops as part of an effort to quash the insurgency in the country's northeast.
Will Bulgaria have a punk-rock PM? With around 99 percent of votes counted from Sunday's national election in Bulgaria, former punk-rock front man and TV personality Slavi Trifonov, who fashions himself as "anti-politics," is favored to head Bulgaria's next government. So far, Trifonov's There Is Such a People party has won 23.9 percent of the vote, just 0.2 percentage points ahead of former prime minister Boyko Borisov's conservative GERB party. Trifonov, who says he will only sit in government with specific protest parties, says he will not try to form a coalition, but will instead head a minority government. The former pop star, who has no real political agenda and did no real canvassing prior to the polls, says he is not courting groups like the anti-corruption group Stand Up! Mafia Out! that emerged from last year's rallies against the corruption plagued Borisov government. Given the slim margin, analysts say that another election cannot be ruled out, which would be Bulgaria's third in 2021. Either way, this result is likely to signal the end of Borisov's years-long grip on power, an era characterized by successive corruption scandals and allegations of ties to organized crime groups. (For your amusement, here is Trifonov rocking it out with the Ku ku band, circa 2011.)