Younger folks throughout Africa have turned towards ageing liberation events for failing to ship on their guarantees, Mozambique’s firebrand opposition chief stated greater than a yr after main the most important protests in his nation’s historical past.
Venâncio Mondlane advised the FT that Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo get together, like that of anti-colonial events from South Africa to Zimbabwe, had entered right into a long-term decline.
“We’ve seen all of it all over the world, regime change, as a result of the youthful era are drained,” Mondlane stated in an interview in Maputo. “There’s a related scenario in South Africa, in Angola, Zimbabwe. These events, their days are numbered.”
A charismatic opposition politician, Mondlane in 2024 led protests that introduced Mozambique to a standstill after an election victory he stated was stolen from him, posing the most important risk to Frelimo’s rule because it took energy after independence in 1975.
He fled the nation amid post-election violence by which 300 folks had been killed, returning in January to very large road celebrations. Just a few months later, he registered his personal get together for the primary time, the Nationwide Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique, or Anamola, to rally help forward of the following presidential election in 2029.
“I made a decision to return to my nation and kind my very own get together, and begin once more from zero, as a result of I wish to keep away from extra bloodshed,” Mondlane stated. “In case you attain energy by means of elections, you might have legitimacy.”
Throughout the area, younger leaders are difficult independence events.
In Uganda, six-term President Yoweri Museveni, 81, will this week run towards Bobi Wine, a 43-year-old pop-star-turned-politician who’s standard with youthful voters. A whole lot of opposition supporters have been jailed within the run-up to Thursday’s polls.
South Africa’s ANC in 2024 was pressured right into a power-sharing coalition for the primary time because the fall of apartheid. In neighbouring Botswana, a younger, upstart candidate gained a shock victory towards the get together that had dominated since 1966. And in Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, anti-government protests have surged over the previous yr, rattling entrenched liberation-era events.
Recognized merely as Venâncio — or VM7, a play on the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo’s nickname — the bold 51-year-old Mondlane stated he gained the 2024 polls that worldwide observers stated had been marred by fraud and irregularities.
He rejected the official outcomes, which gave Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo 65 per cent of the vote, and stated his personal tally gave him a profitable share.
Mondlane, an engineer and former pastor, makes use of social media to ship searing sermons towards Frelimo and has continued drawing massive numbers to anti-government rallies since his return to Mozambique.
In a rustic with a median age of 19, his criticisms of the federal government’s dealing with of the financial system have struck a chord amongst younger folks. Mozambique stays one of many world’s poorest nations regardless of internet hosting a number of the world’s largest LNG initiatives.
As an opposition MP, he has offered parliament with a proposed regulation to decrease the voting age to 18 from 21, demanded that the federal government construct 3mn homes and argued it ought to arrange a $500mn youth entrepreneurship fund.
To stress the federal government he additionally in September joined Mozambique’s state council, an influential presidential advisory physique that features all earlier residing presidents in addition to the runner-up within the final election.
“Such is the dearth of religion in Frelimo for thus many who Mondlane’s model of populism unfold like wildfire,” stated Piers Pigou, an impartial analyst in Johannesburg. “Whether or not it supplied a practical different was irrelevant. It was an alternate and, in essence, that was all that mattered.”
Mondlane has frequently bemoaned a cost-of-living disaster and hovering costs of market staples, arguing that Frelimo is artificially propping up the foreign money and inflicting the nation to expire of {dollars}.
Years of suppressed inflation — presently operating at 4 per cent — may ultimately erupt right into a disaster, compounded by a heavy debt burden from the nation’s so-called tuna bonds scandal, he stated.
“The day that Mozambique liberates the change price and we all know the true inflation price, we are going to see situations near Zimbabwe,” stated Mondlane, drawing a parallel to a rustic infamous for years of hyperinflation. Mozambique has “a faux change price [that] the federal government is manipulating as a result of they wish to give the impression of stability”.
Though Mozambique doesn’t formally have a peg to the greenback, the metical has been de facto stored at about 64 to the greenback for nearly 5 years by means of central financial institution management of the foreign money market.
The nation continues to be repaying money owed from the $2bn tuna bond scandal in 2013, by which officers organized state-backed loans to fund vastly inflated and fraudulent maritime safety initiatives and a state tuna fishing fleet.
Virtually 90 per cent of presidency tax income is used to service debt and pay state staff’ salaries. The federal government carried out an change of home debt in 2025 that was “tantamount to default”, and funds on some bonds had been delayed, S&P World stated in October.
President Chapo, who has denied that Mozambique has any scarcity of overseas foreign money, is in talks with the IMF on a bailout.
In July, the nation’s attorney-general charged Mondlane with 5 crimes — together with instigating and inciting terrorism, which carries a sentence of greater than 20 years’ imprisonment and would bar him from operating within the presidential elections in 2029.
A trial date has not but been set — Mondlane has immunity by means of his place on the presidential advisory physique — and analysts say it may reignite protests. Mondlane, who denies the allegations, stated he has “a transparent conscience”.
Flanked by two closely armed bodyguards wearing black, Mondlane stated he’s much less fearful for his security now, regardless of police firing on his convoy as he drove to an anti-government rally earlier in 2025. “It’s not as unhealthy as earlier than,” he stated.
“You don’t have to have a gun in your hand to alter Mozambique,” he added. “You want brains. You want concepts. You want a plan.”
Extra reporting by Joseph Cotterill in London
