Venâncio Mondlane is Mozambique’s political challenger: what he stands for

When people watched political debates on Soico TV, one of the most watched private channels in Mozambique, around 2010, they often saw a young forest engineer and bank employee who was able to brilliantly articulate the country’s problems.

He was Venâncio Mondlane, a distant kinsman of Eduardo Mondlane, the first president of Frelimo (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique). Venâncio’s family supported the liberation movement that led Mozambique to independence from Portugal in 1975. His biting criticism, however, suggested that his sympathies were not with the ruling party.

Today, Venâncio Mondlane finds himself at the centre of the worst political crisis to have shaken Frelimo’s 50-year rule of Mozambique, the resource rich but impoverished southern African country of 35 million.

He claims to have been cheated of a win in the presidential and legislative elections held on 9 October 2024. The country’s election body said Frelimo’s Daniel Chapo (47) won with over 70% of the votes, and Mondlane (50), an independent supported by the small Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos), trailed behind at 20%. The highest court in the land subsequently confirmed Frelimo’s win, but adjusted the numbers to 65% for Chapo and Mondlane 24%.

Popular protests broke out after the initial election outcomes. The elections were considered by national and international observers as fraudulent.

The protests, which Mondlane led through online platforms from a secret hideout abroad, brought the country to its knees: borders with South Africa were blocked, with major economic consequences for both nations. Thousands fled. Frelimo’s headquarters were destroyed. Above all, Mozambicans seemed to have finally lost their fear of the repressive authorities.

The response of the outgoing government of President Filipe Nyusi was hardline: no to calls for a rerun of the elections. It responded to the protests with deadly violence.

I specialise in the politics of lusophone Africa, in particular Mozambique. During my years of research, I established privileged relations with key political players, which allowed me to understand deeply the Mozambican political dynamics.

I interviewed Venâncio Mondlane in Maputo in 2014 for research I was conducting on the breakdown of the Mozambican political system. My concept of political risk tries to explain how Frelimo has manipulated the electoral process to retain political power.

Since its independence, in 1975, Mozambique has been ruled by Frelimo, a Marxist-Leninist party that later converted to unbridled liberalism in the early 1990s.

In recent years, since the 2018 death of Afonso Dhlakama, the historical leader of Renamo, the largest opposition party, it has been difficult to see a concrete political proposal from Frelimo and Renamo on how to resolve the developmental problems and dire economic situation.

Mondlane has stepped in to fill the vacuum.

Born in Lichinga (Niassa province, northern Mozambique) in 1974, Mondlane has long been a militant civil society activist. In 2000 he was particularly active in helping people affected by the floods in Gaza province, southern Mozambique.

In the following years he continued with various social and cultural initiatives. In 2013 he was the only young person from Portuguese-speaking African countries to be included in the International Leadership Program promoted by then US president Barack Obama.

These civil society experiences helped shape Mondlane’s political vision outside party politics.

He later became pastor of an African evangelical church. And he harnessed social networks to undermine the old Frelimo party-state system.

Mondlane’s political programme includes greater economic liberalisation and institutional reforms to implement separation of powers. He also advocates for concrete steps to combat poverty and promote human rights – from free speech and press freedom to housing for young people.

He admires the former Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro. He also seems close to the positions of Chega, an extreme right-wing party in Portugal. However, lately he seems to have moved closer to liberalism. In short, his political outlook is a mixture of populism, humanism, innovation and real knowledge of the problems, which contrasts with Frelimo’s corrupt practices.

Mondlane began his political adventure in 2013, when he joined the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM). This was a new political party created by Daviz Simango, a son of the former vice-president of Frelimo, Uria Simango, in 2008. He broke the alliance with Renamo’s Dhlakama.

The new party won the municipal elections in Beira, the fourth most populous city, and loomed as the main threat to the Frelimo party-state’s power system.

Mondlane was the new party’s mayoral candidate for the municipality of Maputo, the capital. He and other young politicians managed to achieve significant results in the 2013 municipal elections.

The MDM also won other important cities, such as Nampula and Quelimane. In some municipalities it garnered 30% to 40% of the seats.

But Simango won the Maputo mayorship – without the staggering majorities Frelimo had always got in local elections. The electoral process was mired in controversy.

In the 2014 interview, Mondlane bitterly protested that he had won the municipal elections, but had been cheated.

In the following years, Mondlane became a powerful figure on the Mozambican political scene, riding on the mistakes of Frelimo and Renamo.

Dhlakama had seen in Mondlane a leader who, in time, could potentially replace him. In a meeting in Gorongosa in 2017, where Dhlakama was leading the second war between Renamo and the Mozambican government, Mondlane dumped the Democratic Movement of Mozambique – at the start of its downward spiral – and switched to Renamo. He was mandated to lead that party’s political front in the south, particularly in Maputo, as Mondlane himself recalls.

However, when Dhlakama died in May 2018, the party fell into the hands of Ossufo Momade, an army general with little political experience and no obvious leadership qualities. He struck a relationship with Mondlane that was at once one of distrust.

In 2023, Mondlane stood as Renamo’s candidate for mayor of Maputo. After a groundbreaking election campaign, in which he drew the support of young people and women, Mondlane appeared to triumph in the capital’s municipal elections.

His rise was also helped by the sudden death of Mozambique’s most famous rapper, Azagaia, in 2023. Youth outraged by the Frelimo power system, who had found in Azagaia’s words one of the few means to express their anger, found a substitute in Mondlane to articulate their political concerns.

He spearheaded the demonstrations in Maputo following Azagaia’s death. He could be seen standing at the head of groups of somewhat frightened young people, who chanted Azagaia’s famous tunes, including the hit Power to the People.

Mondlane may have realised then that Mozambicans needed a mature and courageous political leader. He became Renamo’s candidate for the leadership of the Maputo municipality.

By then, he had become pastor of the African evangelical church Ministério Divina Esperança. So, he was able to mix the church’s appeal with the young people’s desire for redemption and social justice. This united three fronts – religion, Renamo and Azagaia’s young followers – into an explosive cocktail, electorally speaking.

The disputed 2024 elections catapulted Mondlane to national and international prominence. He embarked on a diplomatic mission to garner support from the west and from African institutions. The main aim of this mission was to gain the trust of the international community and expose the high degree of fraud in the 2024 elections.

His supporters and lawyers also filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court over the Mozambican police’s crackdown on pro-Mondlane protesters, which claimed many victims.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Luca Bussotti, Universidade Técnica de Moçambique (UDM)

Luca Bussotti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.