A fiery preacher-turned opposition leader is live streaming what he’s calling a revolution in the gas-rich southern African nation of Mozambique.
Venâncio Mondlane has the country of nearly 35 million on edge as he escalates a showdown with the state after claims of mass fraud in the Oct. 9 elections. He trails ruling Frelimo party candidate Daniel Chapo by a wide margin in the latest count.
When he goes live on his Facebook page, hundreds of thousands watch.
The weekend death-squad-style murder of Mondlane’s lawyer has ratcheted up tensions, as he called for two days of national demonstrations. Yesterday, he implicitly advocated revolution.
Many Mozambicans are frustrated with corruption and have lost hope in democracy, with Frelimo set to extend its 49-year rule, longer than most citizens have been alive. A $2 billion loan scandal in 2016 sparked court cases across three continents and led to the imprisonment of the son of Mozambique’s former president.
Mozambique has millions of frustrated, marginalized youth — the median age is about 17 — with little to lose.
Many have abandoned the traditional opposition party, and elevated Mondlane to become their voice — a meteoric rise for an independent presidential candidate.
Home to some of Africa’s biggest natural gas troves that have drawn investment plans worth billions from TotalEnergies to ExxonMobil, Mozambique is sitting on top of a potentially explosive cocktail. It has one of the world’s poorest populations, which is worse off than a decade ago.
That mix has erupted into fighting in Cabo Delgado province, where an insurgency by an Islamic State-aligned group forced TotalEnergies to halt its $20 billion liquefied natural gas project in 2021.
The nation is still struggling to emerge from a 16-year civil war that left as many as a million dead and is regularly battered by monster tropical storms.
It can hardly afford the wave of unrest that Mondlane is riding. — Matthew Hill