Mozambique Government and Politics

Following the 2004 Constitution, Mozambique is a democratic and unified state republic according to AllCityCodes.com. The President of the Republic holds the country’s supreme executive, elected in the general election for five years and with the possibility of re-election once. The president is also military commander-in-chief and appoints the prime minister and the rest of the government, as well as almost all of the state’s top officials.

Legislative authority has been added to the Republican Assembly. It has 250 deputies, elected in general elections for up to five years in a proportional electoral system with the provinces as the electoral district.

Mozambique Country Flag

Reference: Mozambique Flag Meaning

Administrative division

Mozambique is divided into 10 provinces and the metropolitan area. The provinces are governed by governors, appointed by and responsible to the president. A popularly elected provincial assembly holds relatively few areas of government. Local elections are held in 53 cities and towns, but rural areas (and the population there) are governed by centrally appointed administrators who are almost exclusively members of the Frelimo government party. At the local level, and especially in rural areas, the territory is again subdivided into areas that “belong” to a local family with traditional authority (or “regulo”, something can be translated as “chief”). At district level, or in urban areas, the Frelimo Party has appointed its “village secretaries”.

Judiciary

The Supreme Court is the Supreme Court, which also serves as a Constitutional Court. Otherwise, there are lower courts at the various administrative levels. The legislation is based on Portuguese examples and customary law. Also see AbbreviationFinder for abbreviation of MZ and its meanings of Mozambique.

Presidents of Mozambique

Mozambique is a republic in southern Africa. The state was created under Portuguese colonial rule. In 1975, the country gained independence following a liberation war led by Frelimo. The four Presidents of the Republic have since come from this party, and at the same time they have been party leaders for Frelimo.

Mozambique was a one-party state under Frelimo’s first president, Samora Machel, and during parts of Joaquim Chissano’s presidential term. The first Democratic presidential election was held in 1994, and has since been held under the Constitution every five years. The President of Mozambique has extensive power under the Constitution and appoints the government, as well as the central and local state apparatus.

List of Presidents

Period President
1975-1986 Samora Machel
1986-2005 Joaquim Chissano
2005-2015 Armando Guebuza
2015- Filipe Nyusi

Mozambique Head of Government

Economically growing and politically stable, the country was suffering from the growing economic disparities that had accompanied the development and rigidity of a political system that was struggling to articulate itself in a real internal dialectic. Even in a context of substantial democracy, the governing party, the Frente de libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO), in power since 1975, in fact continued to occupy all leadership positions, relegating the opposition forces to the margins of political life. The general elections of 2009 confirmed the existing structures and President Armando Emilio Guebuza, in power since 2004, obtained a second term. In 2010 Maputo was the scene of massive street demonstrations against the rise in the prices of basic necessities, which were bloody repressed by the police. In an attempt to unblock the situation, the following year the government launched the Poverty Reduction Action Plan (PARP), a five-year program aimed at reducing poverty and supporting the economy through investments in the agricultural, energy and infrastructure sectors. All this resulted in sustained growth, but only marginally affected the living conditions of the population as wealth continued to remain concentrated in the hands of a few. The internal situation worsened further in 2012 following the withdrawal of Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the historic opposition party Resistência nacional moçambicana (RENAMO), in the Gorongosa forest and the subsequent resumption of guerrilla actions against the central government. The crisis came to a head in 2013 when, after an attack by government forces, RENAMO renounced the 1992 peace accords that ended the civil war. Only in 2014 was a new agreement reached also in view of the general elections. Held in October, the consultations recorded once again the victory of FRELIMO and its candidate Filipe Nyusi, elected president; the results, however, were contested by the opposition and the situation remained critical.

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