{"id":18438,"date":"2026-01-12T09:25:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/18438\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:25:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:25:25","slug":"young-africans-turning-on-liberation-parties-opposition-leader-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/18438\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Africans turning on liberation parties, opposition leader says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young people across Africa have turned against ageing liberation parties for failing to deliver on their promises, Mozambique\u2019s firebrand opposition leader said over a year after leading the biggest protests in his country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Ven\u00e2ncio Mondlane told the Financial Times that Mozambique\u2019s ruling Frelimo party, like that of anti-colonial parties from South Africa to Zimbabwe<\/a>, had entered into a long-term decline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it all around the world, regime change, because the younger generation are tired,\u201d Mondlane said in an interview in Maputo. \u201cThere is a similar situation in South Africa, in Angola, Zimbabwe. These parties, their days are numbered.\u201d <\/p>\n

A charismatic opposition politician, Mondlane in 2024 led protests<\/a> that brought Mozambique to a standstill after an election victory he said was stolen from him, posing the biggest threat to Frelimo\u2019s rule since it took power after independence in 1975.<\/p>\n

He fled the country amid post-election violence in which 300 people were killed, returning in January<\/a> to huge street celebrations. A few months later, he registered his own party for the first time, the National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique, or Anamola, to rally support ahead of the next presidential election in 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to return to my country and form my own party, and start again from zero, because I want to avoid more bloodshed,\u201d Mondlane said. \u201cIf you reach power through elections, you have legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VenancioMondlane: \u2018You don\u2019t need to have a gun in your hand to change Mozambique\u2019 \u00a9 Amilton Neves\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Across the region, young leaders are challenging independence parties.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s ANC in 2024 was forced into a power-sharing coalition for the first time since the fall of apartheid. In neighbouring Botswana, a young, upstart candidate won a shock victory against the party that had ruled since 1966. And in Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, anti-government protests have surged over the past year, rattling entrenched liberation-era parties.<\/p>\n

Known simply as Ven\u00e2ncio \u2014 or VM7, a play on the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s nickname \u2014 the ambitious 51-year-old Mondlane said he won the 2024 polls that international observers said were marred by fraud and irregularities.<\/p>\n

He rejected the official results, which gave Frelimo\u2019s Daniel Chapo 65 per cent of the vote, and said his own tally gave him a winning share.<\/p>\n

Mondlane, an engineer and former pastor, uses social media to deliver searing sermons against Frelimo and has continued drawing large numbers to anti-government rallies since his return to Mozambique.<\/p>\n

\"AMozambique\u2019s controversial election result sparked unrest in Maputo in 2024 \u00a9 Amilton Neves\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In a country with a median age of 19, his criticisms of the government\u2019s handling of the economy have struck a chord among young people. Mozambique remains one of the world\u2019s poorest nations despite hosting some of the world\u2019s biggest LNG projects.<\/p>\n

As an opposition MP, he has presented parliament with a proposed law to lower the voting age to 18 from 21, demanded that the government build 3mn houses and argued it should set up a $500mn youth entrepreneurship fund.<\/p>\n

To pressure the government he also in September joined Mozambique\u2019s state council, an influential presidential advisory body that includes all previous living presidents as well as the runner-up in the last election.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch is the lack of faith in Frelimo for so many that Mondlane\u2019s brand of populism spread like wildfire,\u201d said Piers Pigou, an independent analyst in Johannesburg. \u201cWhether it provided a realistic alternative was beside the point. It was an alternative and, in essence, that was all that mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mondlane has regularly bemoaned a cost-of-living crisis and soaring prices of market staples, arguing that\u2009Frelimo is artificially propping up the currency and causing the country to run out of dollars.<\/p>\n

Years of suppressed inflation \u2014 currently running at 4 per cent \u2014 could eventually erupt into a crisis, compounded by a heavy debt burden from the country\u2019s so-called tuna bonds scandal, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day that Mozambique liberates the exchange rate and we know the true inflation rate, we will see scenarios close to Zimbabwe,\u201d said Mondlane, drawing a parallel to a country notorious for years of hyperinflation. Mozambique has \u201ca fake exchange rate [that] the government is manipulating because they want to give the impression of stability\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AMondlane has regularly bemoaned a cost-of-living crisis and soaring prices of market staples \u00a9 Guillem Sartorio\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Although Mozambique does not officially have a peg to the dollar, the metical has been de facto kept at about 64 to the dollar for almost five years through central bank control of the currency market.<\/p>\n

The country is still repaying debts from the $2bn tuna bond scandal in 2013, in which officials arranged state-backed loans to fund hugely inflated and fraudulent maritime security projects and a state tuna fishing fleet. <\/p>\n

Almost 90 per cent of government tax revenue is used to service debt and pay state workers\u2019 salaries. The government carried out an exchange of domestic debt in 2025 that was \u201ctantamount to default\u201d, and payments on some bonds were delayed, S&P Global said<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

President Chapo, who has denied that Mozambique has any shortage of foreign currency, is in talks with the IMF on a bailout.<\/p>\n

In July, the country\u2019s attorney-general charged Mondlane with five crimes \u2014 including instigating and inciting terrorism, which carries a sentence of more than 20 years\u2019 imprisonment and would bar him from running in the presidential elections in 2029.<\/p>\n

A trial date has not yet been set \u2014 Mondlane has immunity through his position on the presidential advisory body \u2014 and analysts say it could reignite protests. Mondlane, who denies the allegations, said he has \u201ca clear conscience\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flanked by two heavily armed bodyguards dressed in black, Mondlane said he is less fearful for his safety now, despite police firing on his convoy as he drove to an anti-government rally earlier in 2025. \u201cIt\u2019s not as bad as before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to have a gun in your hand to change Mozambique,\u201d he added. \u201cYou need brains. You need ideas. You need a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Joseph Cotterill in London<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young people across Africa have turned against ageing liberation parties for failing to deliver on their promises, Mozambique\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[106],"class_list":{"0":"post-18438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-zimbabwe","8":"tag-zimbabwe"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}