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.
FRELIMO is a democratic socialist political party in Mozambique. It is the dominant party in Mozambique and has won a majority of the seats in the Assembly of the Republic in every election since the country's first multi-party election in 1994.
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 André Matsangaissa, 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 his death in 2018. He was succeeded by Ossufo Momade.
Armando Emílio Guebuza is a Mozambican politician who was the third President of Mozambique from 2005 to 2015.
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.
Marcelino dos Santos was a Mozambican poet, revolutionary, and politician. As a young man he travelled to Portugal, and France for an education. He was a founding member of the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, in 1962, and served as the party's deputy president from 1969 to 1977. He was Minister of Economic Development in the late 1970s, Frelimo Political Bureau member in charge of the economy in the early 1980s, Chairman of the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, from 1987 to 1994, and, as of 1999, remained a member of the Frelimo Central Committee. He represented the left wing of the party, remaining an avowed Marxist-Leninist, despite the party's embrace of capitalism in recent decades, an embrace which dos Santos declared was temporary.
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 to elect the president, Assembly of the Republic, and Provincial Assemblies was held in Mozambique on 28 October 2009. Incumbent President Armando Guebuza ran for re-election as the FRELIMO candidate; he was challenged by opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama, who had stood as the RENAMO candidate in every presidential election since 1994. Also standing were Daviz Simango, the Mayor of Beira, who was a RENAMO member before founding his own party, the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), earlier in 2009.
The Democratic Movement of Mozambique is a political party in Mozambique. Founded on 6 March 2009, it is led by Daviz Simango, who is the Mayor of Beira. It formed after breaking with RENAMO, the main opposition party.
Daviz Mbepo Simango was a Mozambican politician who was Mayor of Beira from 2003 to the day of his death in February 2021. He was also the President of the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM). He was son of Uria Timoteo Simango the first Vice-President of FRELIMO and Celina Tapua Simango. He joined the main opposition party RENAMO in 1997 and became Mayor of Beira in 2003 as its candidate. On March 6, 2009, he founded a new party, the Movimento Democrático de Moçambique, or MDM.
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.
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.
Ossufo Momade is a Mozambican politician. He has served as president of the Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO), the main opposition party of Mozambique since January 17, 2019. He assumed the presidency of the party after the death of its leader Afonso Dhlakama in May 2018 on an interim basis until he was elected president of the party at an internal congress held at the beginning of the following year. On August 1, 2019, Momade agreed to renounce violence and signed a peace agreement with Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi at RENAMO's remote military base in the Gorongosa mountains. This agreement resulted in the last remaining members of the RENAMO insurgency surrendering their weapons. A second signing ceremony then took place in Mapotu's Peace Square, which result in Momade declaring that he and members of RENAMO would now focus on "maintaining peace and national reconciliation."
Mário Albino is a Mozambican politician who ran for mayor of Nampula in 2018 and for president in 2019.
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 2023 Mozambican local elections were held on 11 October 2023 to elect mayors and municipal councils across the country. The results published initially by the National Election Commission (CNE) had FRELIMO winning 64 of the 65 municipalities contested, with the only city won by another party being Beira, which was won by the Democratic Movement of Mozambique. Tensions rose prior to the elections, with the police arresting members of the opposition in several cities. On October 27, after the provisional election results came out, protests broke out in several major cities such as Nampula and Maputo in reaction to alleged fraud in the election.
The Independent Party of Mozambique is a political party in Mozambique. The party was founded in 1993, it was reportedly intended to be named 'Mozambique Islamic Party', but since national legislation prohibits religious political parties the name was adjusted to 'Independent'. Yaqub Sibindy is the chairman of the party.
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