By Hilário Chacate, Lecturer in International Relations
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – The current post-election crisis that Mozambique faces can be explained by the way in which political and economic power is distributed, based on a neopatrimonial perspective and by the model of a zero sum game, in which the winner takes and controls everything.
The first Republic, as from 1975, was shaped on a logic in which the line separating the State, the Government and the Party was very tenuous, and in reality did not exist. Even with the transition, in 1990, from a one-party state and a centrally planned economy to political pluralism and economic liberalism, the political culture of the Frelimo government proved inflexible.
The concept of political and economic power based on the neo-patrimonial vision was contested by Renamo right from the start. However, it was disguised by a theoretical democracy and by regularly holding general and municipal elections.
Hermet et al[1]define political and economic neopatrimonialism as a political order in which those who surround the prince take part in appropriation through the controlled extension of the practices of sale, privilege, or fiefdom. Furthermore, factors stand out which favour the personalisation of authority, and the confusion between public and private spaces.
Thus, those who conceive of power in the light of neopatrimonialism have a certain difficulty in understanding its limits of action and regard the state machine as an instrument at the service of their private interests and of those whom they have coopted (clients) and legitimised to form part of the machine.
The political culture in Mozambique, particularly that of the leaders of the ruling party, consists of seeing State institutions, including economic and political opportunities, as the private property of the ruling party. The politicisation of the State apparatus arises as a consequence of this understanding that the state machinery is confused with the extension of party and government property.
The perception that power as a resource belongs exclusively to a small elite formed by the liberators, or people close to them, has been the source of the socio-economic and political exclusion of the majority of Mozambicans. Furthermore, this understanding has been reproducing and consolidating the idea that only a minority connected to the Frelimo Party should have access to and control over opportunities, redistributing them as they see fit.
The Mozambican economic and business landscape in which prominent figures in the ruling party, or people close to them control almost all businesses, from the most lucrative to the supply of office material and cleaning services in public and private institutions, is evidence that this is a state based on neopatrimonialism and clientelism, and which grants privileges to a small elite and to those whom the elite legitimises, at the expense of the collective.
Over several decades, this scenario has built a sense of relative deprivation among various strata of Mozambican society who feel excluded from the few opportunities the country offers. Factors such as the excessive and disproportionate use of force by the police against those who are demanding their rights, the structural violence expressed in the financial opulence of a minority in the midst of misery and in the presence of large capital in the exploitation of natural resources awaken feelings of frustration and aggression as we have witnessed in the violent demonstrations under way.
Another factor that emerges as one of the motives for conflict in Mozambique is “the winner takes all” election model, which views political relations as a field in which several players compete for power, and the victory of one player automatically signals the defeat of all the others. In addition to controlling everything, the winner leaves nothing for the vanquished.
In the opinion of Newitt[2], there are a series of factors endangering Mozambican democracy. But any understanding of the problem should start with the idea that Mozambique was declared a unitary state without formal provision for any form of power sharing. Since 1992, it has been agreed that national elections would be a game in which the winner would take everything. In the more vibrant democracies this is not regarded as a great problem. It is assumed that no party will hold power indefinitely. In the case of Mozambique, the Constitution envisages a significant element of decentralisation and local democracy, The plan was to divide the entire country, both rural and urban areas into 128 municipalities that would be controlled by a democratically elected mayor and a municipal assembly,
However, immediately after the first elections in 1994, the idea of decentralisation was diluted and only 33 municipalities were set up in urban areas, which would visibly be won by the ruling party. This had the effect of excluding about 75% from having a direct voice in local government. Disagreeing with this change, Renamo boycotted the first municipal elections in 1998.
Several decades after the adoption of political pluralism in Mozambique, it can be concluded that the main political objective of delaying decentralisation was to weaken the influence of Renamo on the structure of local governance, and to guarantee that control over the country’s natural resources remained in the hands of the central government, controlled by the ruling party[3].
In Cahen’s understanding, the concept of “winner takes all” was the cancer of Mozambican political life in the period following the Rome agreement (1992). The voters of Zambézia, for example, might always vote in support of the opposition, but the governor was always from Frelimo. All the district administrators were from Frelimo, all the heads of administrative posts were from Frelimo, all the recognised community authorities were from Frelimo, the department heads were from Frelimo, the seven million meticais (an initiative of President Guebuza that allocated funds to finance district development initiatives) went to the friends of Frelimo. This fed exasperation, mass voter abstention and the danger of a new war in 2014-2015, because there was a considerable mass of very poor young people without any hope of changing their situation by peaceful means[4].
Hence, it is evident that the configuration of political and economic power based on a neopatrimonial vision, linked to the zero sum game model, has been one of the sources of discord and has contributed to a substantial change in the cornerstones that sustain a very fragile peace in Mozambique. Hence, far-reaching reform of the mechanisms for the distribution of power, at various levels, is urgent and can no longer be delayed in order to avoid greater evils in the coming period. (HC)
[1] Hermet Guy, Bertrand Badie, Pierre Birnbaum, [et al.], Dicionário de Ciência Política e das Instituições Políticas, Lisboa, Escolar Editora, 2013, p. 229.
[2]. Malyan Newitt (2017). A Short History of Mozambique. Oxford University Press, UK
[3] Ibid.
[4]. Jornal Savana, Disconcetração, Descentralizaçao ou Democracia:Um Olhar de Michel Cahen, Maputo, Edição do dia 23 de Fevereiro de 2018. P.2.
