Elections overshadowed by memories of war

Joaquim Chissano, president of Mozambique since 1986, is to step down following presidential and parliamentary elections that are still overshadowed by memories of the civil war between the FRELIMO government and the former rebel movement, RENAMO. The ruling FRELIMO candidacy passes to Armando Guebuza, who was the party's chief negotiator at the 1990 Rome peace talks that ended the 16-year war. Afonso Dhlakama, a veteran leader of RENAMO, will be contesting his third presidential poll on 1-2 December. "Party dynamics are very slow - it can take 15 or 20 years to find a new leader," said Inacio Chire, a political analyst at Eduardo Mondlane University. "The war factor is still significant in the collective consciousness, but this is the last opportunity that this generation has. Without having anything against them, it's time for some new tendencies, new philosophies, within the parties." On the streets of the capital Maputo, too, people still cite memories of the war as the main factor influencing which party they will vote for. "We spent a long time in the war, and FRELIMO survived," said 31-year-old secretary Fatima Paruque. "FRELIMO didn't make war - it was RENAMO that wanted war and not dialogue. FRELIMO has continued the policy of a minimum wage, built houses, and helped the victims of the floods and the war." Others pointed to corruption. "The government is stealing, and only a few people are benefiting from the country's growth," said Chinho, a 27-year-old unemployed graduate in Chamanculo, a run-down neighbourhood adjacent to central Maputo. "We need international observers," Chinho added. "As things are at the moment, the government can alter the final result, and they don't want to hand over [power] to another party." A total of eight presidential candidates and 25 parties and coalitions are standing for election. Considered to have the best prospects of breaking the bipartisan pattern of post-war politics is the Peace, Democracy and Development Party (PDD), which also has links to the war era: its leader and presidential candidate is Raul Domingos, who was formerly RENAMO's number two, and Guebuza's opposite number at the Rome peace talks. Most analysts believe the PDD has a realistic chance of breaking through the threshold of 5 percent of the parliamentary vote needed to send a representative to the national assembly, and predict that the PDD's showing is likely to be strongest in RENAMO's traditional north-central stronghold. Domingos commands the same ethnic and regional loyalties as RENAMO, but is widely thought of as a more able and charismatic politician than his former boss, Dhlakama. A Guebuza victory is likely to result in changes in the style rather than the substance of leadership. "Every presidential candidate makes promises to the party, so it is the party which determines policy," said Manuel Tome, who heads FRELIMO's parliamentary bench. "But there may be changes in style - Guebuza is very quick to make things happen and to take decisions; Chissano was unbelievably patient." Eight million Mozambicans are registered to vote, including unknown numbers of dead citizens who have not been removed from the voters' roll. But National Electoral Commission (CNE) spokesman Felipe Mandlate dismissed the possibility that this could lead to electoral fraud. "Voters' cards are issued to individuals to provide security. Each person has to identify himself, and an ink mark on the finger prevents people from voting more than once," he said. Those who are eligible will vote at 60,000 polling stations spread throughout a vast country with limited road infrastructure. Local and foreign observers may monitor every stage of the vote counting, from the opening of the ballot boxes to the delivery of results to the counting centres in the provincial capitals. Former US president Jimmy Carter will lead a delegation of observers from his Atlanta-based Carter Center. The European Union, which is contributing €12 million (US $15.6 million) to funding the election, is also sending a team, while a coalition called the Electoral Observatory will coordinate monitoring by Mozambican civil society groups. Controversy continues over the CNE's refusal to allow monitoring of the final process of tabulation and verification of the results from polling stations, which takes place in the provincial capitals and then in Maputo. Mandlate told IRIN that the CNE's position reflected current national legislation and was not negotiable, but all the observer groups insist that dialogue is continuing, and have expressed confidence that an acceptable solution will be found.