“Violence as a form of achieving racial justice is impractical and immoral. I do not disregard the fact that violence often brings momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence on the battlefield. But, despite temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace”, Martin Luther King Jr.
By: Ernesto Nhanale, Lecturer in Journalism
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – I am beginning this approach to the invitation to “renegotiate the social conract with the State”, because we may, at any moment, fall into the risk of perceiving that the great problem we are facing today in Mozambique are the violent demonstrations we are seeing on the streets and, in error, we place our solutions only on the demonstrations and delay the problem. Obviously, it is important to stop the violent demonstrations so that we have space to solve the problem. It’s the same when there is a fire. The flames are extinguished, but then we look for the source of the fire to deactivate it. Hence the solution to our problem in Mozambique does not involve violence. Volence leads us into a vicious cycle under which the problem will remain, like a circuit on feedback.
This article proposes to look at the demonstrations as effects of a problem that is weakening our State, the so-called “Authoritarian Democracy”. This is a concept discussed in political science and used to designate regimes characterised by the religious holding of elections, but marked by frauds so that in the end the same political actor wins them and governs without accepting civic participation and opposition – that is, it is not very open to accountability and responsibility.
Frelimo is presented as a dominant party, with a history rooted in an authoritarian culture. It has always repressed spaces where other stakeholders might intervene. Its public policies are not clearly for the promotion of development. The State is used to feed the elites and/or even to distribute favours to those who contribute to maintaining this system. This fact ensures that those in the leadership are not concerned about guaranteeing that the State can meet its fundamental goals of ensuring security for everyone and the welfare of society. Instead, it becomes a great milk cow, and only those who contribute to its systemic maintenance can suck from its teats. Furthermore, the State’s means of violence are used for private purposes.
People believe and feel that that the only way of doing well is to become a member of the Frelimo Party, and thus become eligible to being part of the clientelist redistribution of State positions. And since merit is not required for the interested persons to gain a seat at “the top table”, which consists of the benefits taken from public property, it is enough to focus on being “a worker of the repressive machine”, undertaking one of two roles: first, a functionary of the material repressive machinery, or second a propaganda worker, serving to block all forms of participation or competing proposals about how the State should be guided. Those who best interpret one of these functions, and improve their performance, will be placed in better posts. Consequently, they will have better material benefits.
Since the culture installed in Mozambique is beneficial for those who are specialists in repression, people are ceasing to concentrate on studying, innovation and contributing to change that can provide development and material progress, because none of this is recognised and valued. There are states that are classified as “authoritarian democracies” such as Russia, China and Rwanda. But these states have something interesting: while, on the one hand, they manage to contain the bubbles of public eruptions, by using excessive vigilance, and severe punishment of critics, they offer something interesting: for on the other hand they open space for technical innovation with a strong commitment to the material prosperity and welfare of their fellow citizens. The failing of the Frelimo model lies precisely here: it copies the repressive model but does not associate it with the other part of the model which would allow it to provide solutions to problems and hence reclaim its legitimacy.
Authoritarian democracies on the model of Rwanda, even repressive, can manage to justify repression based on the idea of state sovereignty and on the rhetoric that people cannot complain about freedom of expression, because the major concern of these states is with real changes in the material life of people. We have heard this rhetoric copied by the Frelimo propaganda machine, but it has had little success. The changes are not visible.
Another side of the problem is what my friend and teacher of political science, Domingos do Rosario told me in a conversation about the problems of our democracy in Mozambique. He argues the following: “the shortcomings of our democracy are based on the fact that civil society did not participate in the General Peace Agreement. It was a deal between Frelimo and Renamo, depending on their interests”. This thesis of Domingos de Rosário explains to some extent the fact that all the attempts to reform the state were forced by Renamo, through conflicts, without society participating in them. Proof of this are the recent peace accord negotiations for the demobilisation of the Renamo militia, which allowed the holding of provincial elections, as well as all that establishes the institutional framework in Mozambique, including the electoral laws which have led us to the current crisis.
The Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique, although it predates the General Peace Agreement, has undergone many amendments and inclusions in order to ensure respect for the Agreement. The subsequent negotiations led to the current shape of the election management bodies and of the Constitutional Council, characterised by politicisation and a low level of professionalism. That is, all the negotiations forced by Renamo were based on a struggle through which Renamo could gain benefits for itself, through the same model of sustainability, accommodate its members in parliament, in the election bodies, in the Consitutional Council and, possibly in the organs of decentralised governance that it might win (in the municipalities and later in the provincial governments). The fact that the electoral law indicates (nominally) the parties that should comprise the election managment bodies, and that the status of Leader of the Opposition refers to the leader of the second most voted party are clear evidence that the laws were drawn up to acommodate the agenda of Renamo, which was living on the basis that it would always lead the opposition.
It is said that Frelimo understood that Renamo was always concerned about accommodating itself and not about an agenda that would effectively contribute to the State having strong democratic institutions which it could one day use to claim its interests. Like any political organisation in possession of political power, Frelimo used the agenda proposed by Renamo to convert it for its own benefit and in a very astute way. In the end, Renamo ended up liquidating itself. For example, Renamo in the latest peace agrement used provincial and district elections as a bargaining chip. But, in the implementation, Renamo became a victim of its own proposal, for in the following provincial elections, it did not win a single elected governor. It only succeeded in having some of its members included in the provincial assemblies. Frelimo took everything!
With the complete weakening of the main actor with whom the State could enter into dialogue, and given the marginalisation of civil society (in a context of generalised corruption, unemployment, and strong enrichment of the elites), there are people who believe that their problems only involve removing Frelimo from power. This problem has been failing in elections, as can be seen in the 2024 elections. With the claims of election fraud, these groups want to win legitimacy for their claims by taking to the streets. Hence, they create the effects of the violence that we have been witnessing. On the one hand, we have an authoritarian government which is using the júris imperi to repress the demonstrators irrresponsibly. On the other hand are demonstrators who think they have nothing to lose by challenging a leviathan which is failing in its basic responsibilities and is using the argument of the strength it holds to impose itself.
It is obvious that here we have a clear problem, which we have been working as a society to solve: to re-establish electoral justice and place those elected on the agenda of renegotiating the social contract. The idea of confronting an iron leviathan, which society has fed passively, in such a way as to remove it from power abruptly is, in our view, not viable in the short term, and has incalculable consequences in terms of destruction. That is, the current government, characterised by an authoritarian culture and obviously holding the means of violence of the State, will use them to defend its interests by evoking Iuris imperium (the right of exercising sovereignty).
The most important thing that these demonstrations have brought, and that they should teach us, is that, as from today, we need to renegotiate the social contract and found new institutions. In our understanding, this involves three moments: the first is to guarantee a serious commitment to social dialogue and holding responsible those who will govern the State over the next five years; the second is to reform the State institutions, including the election management bodies and the Constitutional Council, into independent bodies. It would be enough, for example, to copy what is happening in South Africa (the Constitutional Council should become a court operating on the same logic as the Supreme Court, from the point of view of its governance). And thirdly, to adopt clear and specific policies about priority areas of development so as to produce immediate results and regain the credibility of State institutions which is currently much diluted.
I have seen a video of an initiative promoted by a group of intellectuals, called “Citizen Manifesto” which suggests a national conference for the “Refoundation of the State”. This seems to me an interesting step! However, we have taken these kind of steps before and they failed because they were not listened to or valued. Those who should have used the ideas produced simply catalogued them as criticism against those who govern, and hence ideas of political enemies. Consequently, everything was bypassed. The country does not value ideas, but compensates the capacity of individuals to show their skills at flattery.
Instead of violence, I am of the opinon that the commitment to justice is superior and should involve renegotiating the valuing of freedoms and participation. To this end, the Assembly of the Republic should cease being a mere space to accommodate the ”good workers” of the political parties. It should be a space to welcome the ideas of society and transform them into laws. It should stop being a space to praise the work of the Government, even when this is mediocre in responding to social problems, and instead become a space for oversight under which the government is formally accountable to Mozambicans. Without an effective institution for oversight, participation, debate and decision committed to the nation, no government will be able to guarantee social peace and contain discontent.
The evidence of election fraud, the evidence of exclusion and the proven violence of the State are effectively eroding the legitimacy of Frelimo. It may be obliged to open spaces for negotiation to create an environment in which it will return to governing. This space should be used to renegotiate the social contract, allowing the participation of society as well as of the political parties.
Anybody who rises to power and comes to govern, because of how the State institutions are currently shaped, will make use of them to implement the same models of governance in the logic of the pedagogy of the oppressed of Paulo Freira, according to which what most inspires the oppressed to struggle is the possibility of replacing the oppressor and becoming equal to him. The only result we would have would be more violence and not changes, for we would only have changed positions and stimulated hatred.
Hence our perspective is that we have to make use of the momentum to negotiate the social contract and Frelimo should open up to these renegotiations. Indeed, it has already given a sign of this, through its Political Commission. The institutional changes are those that will guarantee, in the medium term, that there are changes and consequently rotation of power in a State with reorganised institutions for a greater commitment with society. Frelimo must be pushed to the argument that its model of governance is worn out and needs to be revised. In this revision of the model, civic participation should be considered as the path to follow. As we have shown, there are countries of authoritarian democracies, but which manage to survive and remain firm at the cost of selling the ideas of material progress. Frelimo is trying to copy this, but is incapable of interpreting it. The advantage is that we can take advantage of negotiation so that Mozambique has the space not to be equal to these countries, but instead to be democratic and developed.
The path involves forcing Frelimo to negotiate reforms so as to act on the root of the problem – Reform of the State – as suggested by the Citizen Manifesto movement. We need to force negotiation of the social contract, correcting the mistakes of the past in which the two political actors were on their own, maintaining negotiations for their own interests. But a negotiation which includes society in its most varied fields: political, religious, academic, defence, economic, media, justice, health, etc. For a simple action on effects will lead us in a short time to the same debate and the same violence. (EN)