VYING FOR POWER: Opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane carries the cross of Mozambique’s democracy

He says he was cheated out of victory in 2024. Now Venâncio Mondlane is building his party to win in 2029.

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That cross is his onerous and perilous mission to topple Mozambique’s ruthless ruling party, Frelimo, while living on the run and watching as his comrades die at the hands of political assassins.

Mondlane is not just a charismatic politician and an engineer but also a part-time pastor, so his almost religious devotion to his cause should come as no surprise.

Using the same social media mobilising skills he had mustered so well in his campaign — appealing especially to young people — Mondlane brought hundreds of thousands of Mozambicans out on the street to protest against what he and they insisted was a stolen election.

The security forces responded with violence, and more than 300 people died in months of protests, riots and government retaliation.

Mondlane was forced to flee the country, and since then has been on the move, living mainly between Mozambique and South Africa. He never stays long in one place, but also maintains a vigorous social media blitz on Frelimo.

He says he has survived four assassination attempts and is just as wary in South Africa as in Mozambique.

On 23 March and again on 20 May 2025, he met Chapo and tried to end the protests and the repression.

According to Mondlane’s minutes of the initial meeting, he agreed to halt the protests in exchange for Chapo ending retaliatory actions and releasing dozens of detained demonstrators. Additionally, Chapo agreed to permit hospital treatment for the injured and provide financial compensation to the families of those killed during the unrest.

But, Mondlane said, Chapo later denied to CNN that there had been any agreement. He said he had then responded in interviews that Chapo was a “liar.”

He was talking at the end of the Spier Dialogue, which was run on the Spier wine farm in Stellenbosch by its owner, Yellowwoods, and the Platform for African Democrats (PAD), supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. PAD brings together people like Mondlane, opposition politicians struggling to beat deeply entrenched leaders and parties exploiting their incumbency to cling to power.

Mondlane had held other offices for both Renamo and the Democratic Movement of Mozambique but ran for president in 2024 under the banner of the Podemos party. They parted company after the poll, and last year he formed his own party, the National Alliance for a Free and Autonomous Mozambique (Anamola).

Since then, he has been working extr