Elections

Yesterday Mozambique had presidential elections and although my feelings about elections were incredibly negative (I'll explain that at the end) I have to admit all-day yesterday I was anxious.  I didn't want there to be any violence and recent international news coverage (rare in and of itself) was predicting a close election race and this was so exciting! Along with the chance of a run-off election, many of my friends and colleagues thought that if elections didn't go as people hoped they would, there would be violence.  So I spent all day today frantically checking my phone, scanning news websites in English and Portuguese trying to find anything about the election results and of course what I could find was predictable and depressing.

Yesterday's elections, although peaceful for the most part, were still full of ballot stuffing, fraud and intimidation towards minority parties.  One minority party supporter was reportedly shot in the foot when he tried to stop an incident of ballot stuffing and there were multiple incidents of police firing tear gas and rubber/live bullets at crowds.  A friend here made a joke that election corruption is like cheating at school, it's barely disguised yet impossible to control, so you do what  you can to control some of it and hope for the best, and I think that's what so many Mozambicans did yesterday.  They went and stood in long lines for hours on end and cast their vote in the presidential elections, fully knowing that the Frelimo candidate would likely win, if not in this election, in a run-off but they still went and cast their vote.

The results haven't been announced yet but most sources are saying Frelimo will pull more than 50% of the vote, so a run-off election will not be necessary.  Even with this year's election problems it was really neat to witness a close election, and all of the campaigning that ran up to it.  Yesterday marked Mozambique's fifth presidential elections since 1994.  Prior to 1994, Moz fought a 20 year civil war after gaining independence from Portugal.  In those first elections, Frelimo took power, and Renamo, the loser of the civil war, was slowly pushed out of politics.

Aside from actually living in Mozambique for the election season, this specific election was anticipated by many because of recent events in Mozambique.  Just over a year ago the Renamo leader, Afonso Dhalakama, returned to a bush hideout/camp in the mountains and his soldiers started attacking civilians and stopping traffic along the national highway.  These attacks, although small-scale, upset traffic and trade along the sole national highway in the country, and forced the government to make some concessions to Dkalakama.  Last month, Dkalakama came out of the bush and finally signed the 1992 Peace Accords (for the civil war which ended 22 years ago) and announced he'd be running again in the recent elections.  Renamo supporters flocked to him, and suddenly I started seeing Renamo posters and flags in the streets alongside all the Frelimo paraphernalia.

Along with renewed excitement for Renamo, another, much newer political party, MDM, also gained a lot of attention for this election.  The party was formed in 2009 by a former Renamo supporter, Daviz Simango, who then became the mayor of Beira, Mozambique's second city, under his MDM party.  Most news sources are reporting that MDM picked up just a small percentage of the vote yesterday but the party has a lot of support among younger generations in the cities, and is predicted to only get more popular in time.

So although there were problems yesterday, and the run-off election is unlikely because Frelimo probably got more than half the votes, I really hope that this election scared the political cronies (or chefes as we say here in Mozambique) into starting to actually run a government that benefits its people.  Mozambique is a country that is immensely rich in resources yet it's one of the poorest nations in the world.  Corruption is so widespread and embedded into people's ways of life it's difficult to see how it could change but if the government started creating more opportunities for employment for youth, or opportunities for more people to further their education and get decent jobs it would be a good start...

Enough of my philosophizing though, I'm sure you're tired of my little history lesson, here are some pictures from election day and the campaigning...

People waiting in lines to vote in Vanduzi. 

My good friend Julio proudly posing with his ink-stained finger to show that he voted.

A Frelimo parade in Chimoio...literally traffic just stopped and then all you could hear were whistles and chanting and all you could see was RED.

Some proud Renamo supporters marching down the main road in Vanduzi, also notice the huge billboard in the background endorsing the Frelimo candidate, Nyusi.

This picture doesn't do justice to the campaign season because every store front, market stall, telephone pole and baraca in Vanduzi (and in cities, and along the road between cities) is covered in political posters, usually for Frelimo.  People drive cars and motorcycles covered in posters with huge flags waving out the back and EVERYONE has a shirt to support their party.

I will leave you with this last picture, which always makes me smile even though campaigning literally ruined the school trimester.  Students and teachers skipped class to campaign, on the weekends students were taught Frelimo songs and paraded through town encouraging people to vote and my colleagues who I greatly respect didn't take this semester seriously because they were focusing on the campaign.  Yet if they don't campaign their salary gets frozen, they get transferred to a school in the bush where no one wants to work or they get fired.  It's terrible and frustrating because all this work goes into campaigning for a party that essentially has an autocracy and doesn't not share power and it makes you so disgusted and then grateful for your own nation's government but then there's this picture: 

This is Erriscado, one of the pedagogical directors at the school where I teach and you know what, he loves Frelimo and he's very involved in the party so for teacher's day on Sunday he didn't wear the t-shirt that all the other male teachers wore, instead he wore this, which can only be described as a Frelimo costume (even his visor said Frelimo), and it was pretty great.  Side-note, Erriscado is a good friend and a very hard-worker at school, I respect him ALOT for the work he does for the students and because of that, I don't care what he wears to show who he supports as long as he still does his day job :)

Here's to hoping Mozambique's elections this year pave the way for more freedom and organization from minority parties in-country so that the nation can grow to fully encourage/support a multi-party, democratic government that works to support everyone regardless of where they live and who they want to vote for.