- Chapo may signal a break with the current governance made in the manner of Nyusi and which divides opinion, inside and outside of Frelimo
By Hilario Chacate, lecturer in international relations (hchacate@moztimes.com)
Maputo (MOZ TIMES) – Filipe Nyusi has governed Mozambique and has led Frelimo in his own way. He isolated himself from the established wings of the party, and managed to create his own nucleus of support to govern “in his own way”, as he had promised.
He kept control over the party at all times. When it was time to leave, he still managed to influence the election of his successor, proposing the names of three potential future presidents. His first choice, the then General Secretary of Frelimo, Roque Silva, was rejected by the Party’s Central Committee. It then elected as the Frelimo presidential candidate Daniel Chapo, who had also been on Nyusi’s list of three.
With Chapo confirmed as the candidate, the factions within Frelimo declared their support for him. So is he a factor uniting the wings of Frelimo or is he isolating Nyusi?
Daniel Chapo was not well known before this year. He emerged through a difficult transition – perhaps one of the most difficult since the violence which followed the assassination of the founder of Frelimo, Eduardo Mondlane, in February 1969.
This was a transition marked with bloodshed and splits, with some of the Frelimo leadership, such as Lazaro Nkavandame, deserting to the Portuguese.
But nothing similar has happened in Frelimo since then. The transitions from one President to the next have been peaceful – such as the election of Joaquim Chissano as leader of Frelimo after the death of Samora Machel in1986, followed by the transition to Armando Guebuza who was president of Frelimo and of Mozambique from 2005 to 2015.
There was a similarly peaceful transition from Guebuza to Nyusi in 2015 – although relations between the two later became embittered, perhaps because of the fallout from the scandal of the “hidden debts”, which saw the jailing of Gubeuza’s oldest son, Ndambi Guebuza.
A new transition within Frelimo has now begun, but is overshadowed by the spectre of inner-party conflict. This is the background to the emergence of Daniel Chapo, the first leader of Frelimo to be born after independence in 1975.
The inclusion of his name on the list of three possible presidential candidates which the Political Commission submitted to the Central Committee came as something of a surprise, even to Chapo himself.
At a meeting organized by Frelimo supporters in Inhambane province to praise him on his election as candidate, Chapo said “I came to Maputo to vote, and I’ve returned after being voted for”.
With these words, Chapo made it clear that he had not expected to become the Frelimo presidential candidate. He had travelled from Inhambane to Maputo as a simple member of the Central Committee, and not as a potential presidential candidate.
After the tense session of the Central Committee that culminated in the election of Chapo, something interesting began to happen within the Frelimo membership: factions within the party, including those that were in conflict with the current leadership, surrounded Chapo and expressed unconditional support for his bid for the presidency. Almost all of them tried to present the most noble and convincing reasons to justify their support for Chapo.
One Frelimo parliamentary deputy said he supported Chapo unconditionally because he is an endangered species – a man with singular skills for understanding and solving the problems that afflict Mozambicans, and who is adequate to the challenges that the country faces.
Other say they support him because he is a humble man with a clean record, and who cultivates spiritual and religious values.
Then there are those who say that Chapo deserves unconditional support because he is a person who knows how to listen to others, and has risen up the ladder of state. He was first a district administrator (in Nacala-a-Velha and in Palma), then a provincial governor (in Inhambane) and now a candidate for President of the Republic. In their understanding, this trajectory respected the principle of gradualism, which puts Chapo in a better position to handle the destinies of Mozambicans.
The arguments made by the various wings of Frelimo for their unreserved support for Chapo arise from Frelimo’s own history – when, despite internal divisions, the party’s factions were always able to unite around the leader.
Even in cases of sharp divergences, as seen in the conflict between Guebuza’s supporters, and those of Nyusi, there has never been an outright split in Frelimo. There have never been defections such as those that had such a damaging effect on the Zimbabwean liberation movement, or on the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. No Frelimo leader has followed in the footsteps of the former South African President Jacob Zuma, who abandoned the ANC to set up his own party.
Might there be a risk of hostile relations between Chapo and Nyusi, once the latter leaves power in February 2025? Perhaps not, since Nyusi has taken care to create narratives seeking to prove that he is the sponsor of Chapo. Certainly, Chapo was on the list of potential candidates that Nyusi presented to the Central Committee, and since then, Nyusi has given unstinting support to Chapo, including persuading the Frelimo bodies to accept him as interim general secretary. Nyusi then travelled across virtually the entire country, presenting Chapo as the right candidate at the right moment, to lead the destinies of the country.
Chapo has been taking an increasingly tough line against corruption, nepotism, the dilapidation of the public treasury and other ills that have been affecting the country, particularly under Nyusi. Which raises the question: is Chapo a factor uniting the various wings of Frelimo, or does his rise mark a rupture with Nyusi?
Several of the media have remarked upon the increasingly bitter relations between Nyusi and Guebuza. In a context of hostile relations between Nyusi and some Frelimo factions, who feel they have been marginalised by the present government, it makes sense to conclude that these groups are looking for space to exercise some influence over Chapo, in order to change the current internal order within Frelimo and achieve a new status quo that may be favourable to their economic and financial interests.
The perception that there is generalized discontent, especially among young people, together with Frelimo’s poor performance in last year’s municipal elections, may have led the various factions inside Frelimo to understand that they need greater unity in this sensitive time to avoid someone from outside coming to power and threatening their interests.
However, it is likely that the alignment between the different wings of Frelimo will only prove temporary. After the elections, the roots that feed internal disputes may remain and become deeper. Furthermore, it is likely that these factions are in a race to capture Chapo, so that they can use him as a war horse protect their interests and to avenge the pain they felt from being supposedly marginalised during Nyusi’s governance.
There is a perception that, in addition to the case of the hidden debts, in which the main targets were members of the Guebuza administration, Nyusi made various enemies who might look at a new governance cycle as an opportunity to take revenge.
To protect himself from these threats, the current President needs to ensure that Chapo remains loyal to him, and feels that he owes Nyusi a moral debt for putting him on the shortlist that went before the Central Committee.
Chapo’s discourse against corruption, nepotism and other evils, and his strategy of bringing together the various factions within Frelimo, could be read in various ways.
Chapo might, for example, be trying to create internal cohesion in order to ensure the support of all Frelimo members and facilitate his governance in the coming years.
But Chapo may also be signaling a break with Nyusi’s style of governance. If this proves to be the case, then the current President may have difficult days ahead. (HC)
