Mozambique has begun a 45-day election campaign to choose the next president, with four hopefuls looking to succeed President Filipe Nyusi. He will step down in January at the end of his second five-year term.
More than 17 million registered voters will choose the country’s new head of state and 250 members of parliament in the October 9 election.
The ruling Frelimo’s party’s presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, is expected to face a stiff challenge from Venancio Mondlane, who is running as an independent.
The other two candidates are Ossufo Momade of the former rebel Renamo party and Lutero Simango of the Mozambique Democratic Movement.
The eventual winner will have to deal with the long-running insurgency in the oil- and gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado as well as widespread corruption.
Speaking Saturday in the central port city of Beira, Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo emphasized that he was born into a poor family that lived for two years in captivity during Mozambique’s civil war and overcame adversities to become a public servant. Chapo said he is the right man to reverse the country's economic fortunes.
“We want to combat bureaucracy, combat corruption and create laws that facilitate a good business environment,” he said, “so that investors, whether national or foreign, can come and invest in Mozambique.”
With this investment, he said, there will be more jobs, more salaries and companies will pay more taxes.
Running under the slogan "Save Mozambique!, this country is ours!" Venâncio Mondlane started his campaign in a Maputo suburb, where he promised to create an honest and transparent government and remove Mozambique from the list of the poorest countries in the world.
“We want to put an end to a partisan state once and for all,” he said. “We want a clean state, a state that works for the people and by the people. We want the resources exploited in the provinces to be used in projects in the provinces to develop those regions.”
These will be Mozambique’s seventh general elections since the advent of multiparty democracy in 1994, two years after the government signed a peace deal with Renamo to end a 16-year civil war that killed an estimated 1 million people.
Renamo has not won a national election since then. Frelimo has ruled Mozambique since 1975 when the country won independence from Portugal.
On Friday, the head of the National Electoral Commission, Carlos Matsinhe, called for peaceful elections and asked that everyone abide by election rules to avoid possible post-electoral conflicts.
“Let us not use the electoral campaign to promote disorder, incitement to hatred, moral violence that has led to insults and defamation,” he said. “We must also avoid physical violence and/or other forms of injustice, as all competitors are compatriots and only occasional adversaries.”
In an interview with VOA, scholar and Reverend Marcos Macamo appealed to the candidates to not dwell on the past to settle old scores.
“The issue must not be power, power. It must be the nation to move forward,” Macamo said. “If we come to an agreement, whoever wins, the nation will move forward. With you, I or both of us, let it happen.”
The issue isn’t so much why the country is not moving forward or who is to blame, he said, “but what will you or I do to overcome the situation? Because these wounds of the past are complicating the situation.”
The European Union ambassador to Mozambique said Saturday it will send a mission of 130 observers to monitor the elections.
