( 3 Minutes Read)
Mozambicans will vote this week for a new president who many hope will bring peace to an oil- and gas-rich northern province. The country has been ravaged by a jihadist insurgency for nearly seven years.
Close to 17 million voters will vote for the next president, alongside 250 members of parliament and provincial assemblies. The current president, Filipe Nyusi, is ineligible to stand again after two terms of office.
During the six-week campaign period, which ended Sunday, the frontrunners promised that violence in the north of the country would be their main priority, although none has laid out a plan to end it.
Mozambique has been fighting an Islamic State-affiliated group that has launched attacks on communities in the province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, including beheadings and other killings.
Some 1.3 million people were forced to flee their homes. Around 600,000 people have since returned home, many to shattered communities where houses, markets, churches, schools, and health facilities have been destroyed, the United Nations refugee agency said earlier this year.
Corruption and poverty have also been major campaign issues as the country grapples with high levels of unemployment and hunger that has been exacerbated by El Nino-induced severe drought.
According to the United Nations World Food Program, 1.3 million people in Mozambique are facing severe food shortages as a result of the drought.
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The Southern African Development Community, a regional bloc of southern African nations, has sent a delegation of 52 election observers to the country. The observer mission on Friday called for the impartiality of the country’s electoral bodies during the polls.
