Mozambique Heads to Historic Elections : Youth Call for Change as Era of Liberation-Era Leaders Nears End
Mozambicans are heading to the polls to vote in elections that could, for the first time, usher in a president born after the country’s independence from Portuguese colonisers in 1975.
Some 17 million of the country’s population of 32 million are eligible to vote in the coastal, resource-rich Southern African country on Wednesday. Parliamentary and provincial elections in the 11 provinces will be held simultaneously.
President Filipe Nyusi, 65, of the governing Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) party, will step down after eight years in office.
He could be the last of Frelimo’s pro-independence fighters-turned-presidents who were at the front lines of the brutal liberation war that saw thousands of Mozambicans killed.
Nyusi’s presidency is stained by a mega “tuna bond” corruption scandal (2013-2016) that saw high-level Frelimo members in government jailed – including a former finance minister convicted in the United States in August. Several politicians involved were found to have accepted bribes to arrange secret loan guarantees for government-controlled fishing companies.
Voters are divided along promises of change from the competing candidates. At the same time, some older Mozambicans are less enthusiastic about a change of the old guard.
Many of the country’s youth, though, say they are tired of the old system and want more jobs and security, amid high levels of poverty and an armed conflict in the north.
