Mozambique was a Portuguese colony,overseas province and later a member state of Portugal. It gained independence from Portugal in 1975.
Politics in Mozambique takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential representative democratic republic,whereby the President of Mozambique is head of state and head of government in a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the Assembly of the Republic.
Samora Moisés Machel was a Mozambican politician and revolutionary. A socialist in the tradition of Marxism–Leninism,he served as the first President of Mozambique from the country's independence in 1975 until his death in a plane crash in 1986.
RENAMO is a Mozambican political party and militant group. The party was founded with the active sponsorship of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in May 1977 from anti-communist dissidents opposed to Mozambique's ruling FRELIMO party. RENAMO was initially led by AndréMatsangaissa,a former senior official in FRELIMO's armed wing,and was composed of several anti-communist dissident groups which appeared immediately prior to,and shortly following,Mozambican independence. Matsangaissa,who died in 1979,was succeeded by Afonso Dhlakama,who led the organization until he died in 2018. He was succeeded by Ossufo Momade.
The United Nations Operations in Mozambique was a UN peace mission to Mozambique established in December 1992 under Security Council Resolution 797 with the assignment to monitor the implementation of the Rome General Peace Accords agreed upon by the Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano of FRELIMO,the Front for Liberation of Mozambique,and Afonso Dhlakama of RENAMO,the Mozambican National Resistance. The operation was one of the most significant and extensive UN operations and it sought to demobilize and disarm troops,provide humanitarian aid,and oversee the elections. The operation ended in December 1994.
Afonso Marceta Macacho Dhlakama was a Mozambican politician and the leader of RENAMO,an anti-communist guerrilla movement that fought the FRELIMO government in the Mozambican Civil War before signing a peace agreement and becoming an opposition political party in the early 1990s. Dhlakama was born in Mangunde,Sofala Province.
The Rome General Peace Accords,officially the General Peace Accords,was a peace treaty signed between the government of Mozambique and RENAMO,ending the Mozambican Civil War on October 4,1992. Negotiations preceding the agreement began in July 1990. They were brokered by a team of four mediators,two members of the Community of Sant'Egidio,Andrea Riccardi and Matteo Zuppi,as well as Bishop Jaime Gonçalves and Italian government representative Mario Raffaelli. The delegation of the Mozambican government was headed by Armando Guebuza,who went on to become President of Mozambique. The RENAMO delegation consisted of Raul Domingos,Joséde Castro,Vicente Ululu,Agostinho Murrial,João Almirante,JoséAugusto and Anselmo Victor. The accords were then signed by the then-president of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano,and by the leader of RENAMO,Afonso Dhlakama.
The Mozambican Civil War was a civil war fought in Mozambique from 1977 to 1992. Like many regional African conflicts during the late twentieth century,the impetus for the Mozambican Civil War included local dynamics exacerbated greatly by the polarizing effects of Cold War politics. The war was fought between Mozambique's ruling Marxist Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO),the anti-communist insurgent forces of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO),and a number of smaller factions such as the PRM,UNAMO,COREMO,UNIPOMO,and FUMO.
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi is a Mozambican politician serving since 2015 as the fourth president of Mozambique. He is the current leader of FRELIMO,the party that has governed Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975. Additionally,he has served as the Chairman of the Southern African Development Community since August 2020. During his time in office,President Nyusi has promoted peace and security,and signed multiple agreements with the main opposition parties,RENAMO,to bring a definitive and lasting peace to Mozambique.
General elections were held in Mozambique on 15 October 2014. Filipe Nyusi,the candidate of the ruling FRELIMO,was elected president,and FRELIMO retained its parliamentary majority.
The RENAMO insurgency was a guerrilla campaign by militants of the RENAMO party and one of its splinter factions in Mozambique. The insurgency was widely considered to be an aftershock of the Mozambican Civil War;it resulted in renewed tensions between RENAMO and Mozambique's ruling FRELIMO coalition over charges of state corruption and the disputed results of the 2014 general elections.
Carlos Agostinho do Rosário is a Mozambican politician who was the Prime Minister of Mozambique from 17 January 2015 until 3 March 2022. He is a member of the FRELIMO,and served under President Filipe Nyusi. He worked as a civil servant in the 1970s and was Governor of Zambezia Province between 1987 and 1994. Later he served a short while as MP in 1994 before becoming Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries,in which post he served until 1999. Afterwards he became a diplomat in Asia;prior to his appointment as prime minister,Rosario served as ambassador to Indonesia.
Gilles Cistac was a French-Mozambican lawyer specialised in constitutional law. He was shot and killed and political motives were suspected. The RENAMO party organised protests.
Ivone Soares is a Mozambican politician. She is the deputy leader of Mozambican National Resistance and leads its parliamentary party in the Assembly of the Republic. Soares is also a member of the Pan-African Parliament where she is vice-president of youth. She was the target of an attempted assassination in September 2016.
Events in the year 2018 in Mozambique.
General elections were held in Mozambique on 15 October 2019. During the leadup to the elections,assassinations and significant intimidation of prominent leaders of opposition parties and election observers were alleged. In addition,state resources,media,and aid for cyclone victims were also alleged to be used in favour of the ruling party (FRELIMO) and its candidates. Local elections observers,civil society organizations,the Commonwealth Observer Group,the European Union Election Observation Mission,and several national and international entities classified the elections as rigged. Nevertheless,the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO was declared re-elected with 73% of the vote. The main opposition party RENAMO as well as the other oppositions parties involved in the elections contested the results,claiming there were numerous irregularities,and accusing FRELIMO of "massive electoral fraud",including hundreds of thousands of "ghost voters". As evidence for the international community,Ossufo Momade,the president of the main opposition party RENAMO,transported to Europe a box filled with vote ballots that had been marked in favor of the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO before the commencement of voting. Despite these occurrences,the international community largely ignored any concerns of fraud,and gradually countries started recognizing the incumbent president Filipe Nyusi of FRELIMO as the winner of the elections.
The Revolutionary Party of Mozambique was an armed rebel group in northern Mozambique during the Mozambican Civil War. Founded by Amos Sumane in 1974 or 1976,the PRM was strongly opposed to Mozambique's FRELIMO government and its communist ideology. The party waged a low-level insurgency in the provinces of Zambezia,Tete and Niassa from 1977. Sumane was captured in 1980 and executed by the Mozambican government in 1981. The PRM's leadership passed to Gimo Phiri under whom the party merged with another rebel group,RENAMO,in 1982.
The Maputo Accord,officially the Maputo Accord for Peace and National Reconciliation,is a peace agreement between the Government of Mozambique and Renamo,signed on 6 August 2019,with the aim of bringing definitive peace to Mozambique. The agreement was signed by the President of the Republic of Mozambique,Filipe Nyusi,and the leader of Renamo,Ossufo Momade,in Maputo,and was the result of years of negotiations. It was preceded by the signing of the Agreement on the Definitive Cessation of Military Hostilities,on 1 August 2019,in Gorongosa.
The following is a timeline of events during the Mozambican Civil War as well as subsequent RENAMO insurgency (2013–2021).
Eduardo Namburete is a Mozambican academic and politician. He represented the country's largest opposition party RENAMO in the Assembly of the Republic. He was involved as a mediator in the process which led to the signing of the Maputo Accord in 2019 and was appointed as Mozambique's Ambassador to Algeria in 2024.
