YELLOW CARD: Chapo and the dangerous abyss between the country that those in power claim to govern and the country that the people are living in

Daniel Chapo did not come to power on a blank page. He arrived at the Presidency of a Republic that was formally functioning, but politically wounded, socially distrustful, and deeply divided. His inauguration closed the constitutional chapter of an election, but it did not end the political conflict that arose from it. Official ceremonies could announce the entry into office of a new President, state bodies could recognize and legitimize the succession, and the administrative machinery could resume its routine, but none of this managed to produce what no decree can manufacture: trust. Chapo's problem, from day one, was not just governing. It was governing a country where a significant portion of the population reached the point of contesting not only the election results, but the very credibility of the system that produced them.

That is why it would be politically naive to view the 2024 elections as an episode closed by the presidential inauguration. It is not closed. The country that emerged from that electoral process is not the same country that entered it. The protests were intense enough to cause weeks of paralysis, disrupt economic activity, block roads, close businesses, increase tension in cities, and transform political indignation into a social phenomenon of national dimension. More importantly, it revealed a fracture that can no longer be hidden by the rhetoric of national unity. Mozambican society is divided, and this division cuts across parties, generations, neighborhoods, families, and social networks. One part of the country recognizes the formal authority of the Government; another part continues to hold the conviction that the popular will has been distorted. And between the two lies a dangerous territory of distrust, resentment, and silence.

It is precisely at this point that Daniel Chapo's true responsibility begins. The President could have chosen to make his particularly contested political status a reason to seek renewed legitimacy through profound reforms, institutional transparency, and effective outreach to sectors of society that distrust the government. He could have understood that, in the face of such a polarized society, the first challenge for any government should not be to prove that it has won, but to demonstrate that it knows how to govern for everyone, including those who do not recognize it politically. The Presidency would thus have had the opportunity to transform an inherent weakness into a historic opportunity.

Chapo chose, at least in his speeches, an agenda that seemed to point in that direction. The fight against corruption, national reconciliation, inclusive dialogue, and state reform began to occupy an important space in the government narrative. And this is a path that deserves to be taken seriously, because Mozambique truly needs a break with practices that for decades have eroded citizens' trust in institutions. Corruption is not just a problem of diverted public money. It is a congenital disease that destroys the idea of ​​equality before the law. When someone needs to pay to obtain what they are entitled to, when a professional opportunity depends on contacts, when a public tender is perceived as pre-arranged, when a company prospers thanks to its proximity to power, it is not just an isolated act of corruption that is occurring. A society is being built where the law ceases to be a common rule and becomes an obstacle that some manage to circumvent.

And corruption in Mozambique has a particularity that makes combating it much more difficult: it has become commonplace enough that, in certain contexts, it is no longer recognized as corruption. Petty bribery, political favors, informal payments, misuse of public resources, hiring someone through influence, facilitating a process in exchange for rewards, and using personal relationships to gain advantages have come to coexist with large-scale corruption schemes. The phenomenon is no longer confined to high-level offices. It has penetrated daily life and, in some cases, has become a kind of informal survival mechanism.

But it is precisely here that the President needs to demonstrate whether the fight against corruption is truly a state priority or just another political slogan. Because you cannot fight corruption with speeches against the corrupt while preserving structures that allow the capture of institutions. You cannot fight corruption without transparency. You cannot fight corruption when society continues to distrust the independence of public bodies. And you cannot fight corruption when party affiliation seems, in the eyes of many citizens, to offer a kind of informal protection against certain institutional consequences.

Furthermore, the President of the Republic needs to understand that the biggest problem is the politicization of the State, and the lack of separation between the party and the State will hinder any and all efforts to combat corruption and systemic impunity.

And this is perhaps one of the most uncomfortable issues that the President should place at the center of his national transformation project. As long as the party and the State are confused in the popular perception, any promise of reform will be compromised. A truly national State cannot belong to the ruling party. It must belong to the citizen. Public administration cannot be understood as an extension of the party structure. The police cannot be seen as an instrument for defending political power. The Justice system cannot bear the suspicion of functioning differently depending on who is sitting in the dock. Electoral bodies cannot end each election immersed in a crisis of credibility.

This is the fundamental contradiction of the current political moment: the government speaks of rebuilding trust while a part of society continues to distrust the very institutions that should generate that trust.

The creation of COTE, in this context, could represent a response of great importance. The Inclusive National Dialogue was born precisely from the need to find mechanisms to address the political and institutional fractures that have worsened in the country. The agenda includes fundamental issues such as electoral reform, justice, public administration, depoliticization, reconciliation, and national unity. The problem is not the absence of topics. The problem will be knowing to what extent there is political will to change the structures that support the current system.

Because dialogue is not simply listening. Dialogue means accepting the possibility of change.

If the Government enters into a dialogue process merely to explain to others what it has already decided, then we are not dealing with dialogue. We are dealing with a symbolic consultation. If the COTE (Commission on Electoral Transparency) fails to produce reforms that reduce the concentration of power, increase electoral transparency, strengthen the independence of institutions, and reduce partisan interference in the State, it risks becoming a large-scale operation to manage national dissatisfaction.

And that would be a serious mistake.

National reconciliation cannot be a technique to make political discomfort disappear. Families cannot be asked to forget the dead, young people to forget the detentions, citizens to forget the aggressions, and communities to forget the weeks of paralysis simply because the government has decided it's time to turn the page. The page can only be turned after it has been read. And in this case, there is still too much to read.

The events that followed the post-election period left deep scars. International human rights organizations documented deaths, arbitrary detentions, and excessive or lethal use of force in the context of the repression of protests. These events cannot be treated as an inconvenience of the past. They are part of Mozambique's recent political history and should be seen as a warning about what happens when weak institutions encounter a deeply frustrated society.

Therefore, any serious reconciliation project must necessarily include justice, truth, and accountability.

There is no reconciliation without memory.

There is no lasting peace without justice.

And there is no national unity when a part of society feels that its grievances are politically inconvenient.