Mozambique votes as insurgency blocks oil riches

The resource-rich southeast African nation of 35 million people heads into national legislative and presidential elections on Wednesday in which the party that has run the sub-Saharan country for half a century faces its stiffest challenge in years.

Who’s running? The incumbent FRELIMO party, a leftist former rebel group that has governed since independence from Portugal in 1975, is running party general secretary Daniel Chapo, a former provincial governor.

His main opponent is independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, a charismatic one-time banker who broke away from the main opposition party last year. Mondlane has capitalized on frustration with Frelimo’s half-century rule and drawn outsized support from young people.

In a first, both of the top candidates were born after – or just months before – independence.

What’s at stake? The key challenge is to raise living standards in a country where nearly two-thirds of the population lives in extreme poverty. A big part of that will be quashing a Jihadist insurgency that has halted a series of huge natural gas projects that could transform the country by opening export markets in South and East Asia.

Who is likely to win? Frelimo looks positioned to win, say experts, owing to its incumbency advantages and the possibility that opposition to Chapo will be split.

For more, see our Viewpoint on the election by Eurasia Group Africa expert Ziyanda Stuurmanhere.