In 2024, nearly half of all countries on the African continent underwent a presidential or general election. In southern Africa, the 2024 electoral cycle saw the end of one-party dominance in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) lost the 30-year grip on power that it had held since the end of apartheid in 1994. Also, in neighbouring Botswana, the Botswana Democratic Party, which had governed the country since the dawn of independence in the 1960s, lost power and was replaced by the country’s main opposition party, the United Democratic Movement (UDM).

Against the backdrop of monumental political change sweeping across the region, early polls suggested that Mozambique’s October election would produce a significant challenge to the dominance of the ruling FRELIMO party. It has governed the country since its independence from Portugal in 1975. The current wave of political instability began with the official release of the October election results, where it was declared that FRELIMO’s Daniel Chapo had won a landslide victory in the national polls and that his party had a leading majority in all provinces. International observers including the European Union (EU), the African Union (AU), and the Southern African regional bloc, SADC, all noted irregularities in the electoral process, with the EU stating explicitly that there had been an ‘unjustified alteration’ of the election results. There was ample evidence of a severely flawed election, including voter intimidation, the killing of several key opposition party figures, and a seeming reluctance on the part of the country’s judiciary to earnestly address some of the grievances presented by the opposition.

A court ruling in late December affirmed FRELIMO’s victory and stated that the main opposition leader, Venâncio Mondlane from the PODEMOS party, had won nearly a quarter of the votes. Meanwhile, Mondlane’s party released its own polling results arguing that PODEMOS was the true victor in the October 2024 elections. Leaders from other opposition parties – including some from RENAMO, the long-time arch-rival of the ruling FRELIMO party – have sided with Mondlane. They have accused FRELIMO of rigging the election and have joined Mondlane’s call for a new and fair recounting of votes.

Mondlane has also called for his supporters, mainly youth, to unleash ‘chaos’ on the streets of the capital, Maputo, and other major cities until the government heeds the call for a fair and transparent tallying of votes. The result has been a wave of protests and violence on a scale not seen in Mozambique since the end of the country’s civil war in the early nineties. According to various Mozambican civil society groups, the government has led a violent crackdown that has left more than 100 people dead and nearly 4,000 behind bars.

At the heart of the ongoing political crisis in Mozambique is more than just a dispute over who gets to rule the country. From the onset, there were several key political issues that dominated political discourse. At the top of the list is the insurgency of Islamist militants and Jihadists in the Cabo Delgado Province in northern Mozambique. Since 2017, Mozambican security forces have been locked in a fierce battle against Al-Shabaab and ISIS that has left more than 4,000 dead and wreaked havoc on the country’s economic and administrative infrastructure in its northern province. The containment of the conflict in northern Mozambique is of paramount importance to the country’s leaders and also carries important regional ramifications.

The presence of Islamist militants has been detected in southern parts of neighbouring Tanzania, and there is fear for the long-term ramifications of an uncontained insurgency for regional security. Since 2021, the SADC has deployed a peacekeeping force in Cabo Delgado composed of over 2,000 troops from several southern African countries – including Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa – to assist Mozambican forces.

The presence of an Islamist insurgency in Cabo Delgado is closely linked to the discovery of massive reserves of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in northern Mozambique around 2010. Several lucrative financial deals with large multinational companies such as Exxon Mobil and Total Energies have been placed on hold primarily due to security concerns, as several foreign workers have been kidnapped and killed by the Islamist insurgents. If Mozambique is able to address its security challenges in the north, the exploitation of its gas reserves could see the country transform into Africa’s largest exporter of LNG, which could also carry significant socio-economic implications for the entire southern African region. The International Monetary Fund has projected that Mozambique could reap revenues of up to $500 billion within two decades.

Another important issue is the general political trend towards ending single-party dominance that has characterised the political landscape across southern Africa in recent years. Many of the dominant ruling parties in southern Africa achieved their dominance through a unique confluence of historical events that helped lend them legitimacy and popularity in their respective countries.

In Namibia, much like South Africa, the ruling SWAPO party has won every election since the country’s independence partly because its leaders have been able to capture the salience of its involvement in bringing about the end of apartheid and racial segregation, and also in securing the country’s independence from apartheid-era South Africa. Similarly, in Tanzania the ruling CCM party has held on to power for nearly six decades partly as a result of its ability to capitalise on the symbolism of its role in the country’s anti-colonial movement.

However, as elections in Botswana and South Africa in 2024 demonstrated, the old era of single-party dominance is being challenged in southern Africa. This is partly a result of demographic changes that have seen the emergence of a new generation of citizens who are unencumbered with nostalgia for the period of anti-colonial movements and liberation wars, collective memories which helped to shape the political direction of their countries for many decades. This new generation of citizens – armed with technology, information, and social media – all share a common desire to see their governments respond to the common challenges of the day, including unemployment, inequality, and state corruption.

In Mozambique, the emergence of Mondlane and PODEMOS is yet another indicator that the zeitgeist of political change is shifting away from the generation of parties linked to colonial-era liberation movements and towards a new generation of parties capable of selling themselves to the younger population, whose aspirations are different from those of their parents. In a country where the political status quo has remained relatively unchanged for the last three decades, 2024 appears to have been a year of reckoning for Mozambique.

Moving forward, there are several possible scenarios that may unfold, some of which may help to resolve the political deadlock. Learning from recent history in similar post-election crises in southern Africa, it is likely that South Africa – a regional superpower, the wealthiest and most industrialised country with the strongest military – will play a significant role in helping to resolve the crisis. This is not least because South Africa shares a large land and maritime border with Mozambique; any crisis in Mozambique is likely to have spillover effects in South Africa as well. South Africa also has form on this front: Pretoria played a major role in helping to resolve and mediate the post-election crisis of 2008 in Zimbabwe, where the ruling Zanu-PF party was accused of rigging the election by the opposition and international observers. Lessons from the Zimbabwe crisis could prove helpful in Mozambique.

Furthermore, Mozambique remains the largest recipient of foreign aid from the West in southern Africa. This means that, behind the scenes, we are also likely to see actors such as the United States play a part in resolving the crisis.