On 15th October 2019 Mozambicans will
be voting for
the sixth time
in presidential and legislative elections
following the country’s
founding multiparty election
in 1994. The founding,
second and third
elections, respectively in
1994, 1999 and
2004, included votes for
positions of the
executive president and
representatives in the
national parliament; and the
fourth and fifth
elections, respectively, in
2009 and 2014
entailed votes for the
executive president and
both the representatives of
the national and provincial parliaments.
The forthcoming 2019
election will be
different. It will
entail voting for the
executive president, representatives of
the national and
provincial parliaments and, for
the first time,
voting for the
positions of provincial
governors as a result
of a constitutional amendment
in mid-2018 on
decentralization.
1 This Briefing Paper aims to analyses factors that might affect the outcome of Mozambique’s elections. Why study elections? Not least because they are fascinating events but also because they provide an insight into the levels of participation, representation and democracy in a given society. The founding election in Mozambique mobilized an “enormous information network covering the entire country, involving almost all of the country’s broadcasting, video and advertising companies, dozens of related institutions and thousands of young Mozambicans who were the great communicators of this process in their communities: the voter education agents” (De Maia 1996:151). As such it is interesting to observe the performance of this on the news media and the election issues that were covered by the media and discussed with spouses, co-workers, friends and neighbours. Another reason to study elections is that “elections [can] yield masses of quantitative data amenable to statistical analysis” (Denver 2007:4). Exactly who is going to win an election and with what margin of victory is a matter of some debate. This Paper contributes to that debate by reflecting on some of the long and short-term factors that may affect voting behavior of the 2019 election in Mozambique. The long-term factors of voting behavior include voters’ social characteristics, such as: class, religion and ethnicity but also their party identification. The social determinant theory of voting behavior resulted from Lazarsfeld and colleagues (Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet 1944, Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee 1954) while the party identification 2theory of voting behavior derived from Campbel et al. (1960). These theories assumed that voters’ social characteristics and their psychological attachment to a political party were determinants affecting their political preference. Click here to read.
1 This Briefing Paper aims to analyses factors that might affect the outcome of Mozambique’s elections. Why study elections? Not least because they are fascinating events but also because they provide an insight into the levels of participation, representation and democracy in a given society. The founding election in Mozambique mobilized an “enormous information network covering the entire country, involving almost all of the country’s broadcasting, video and advertising companies, dozens of related institutions and thousands of young Mozambicans who were the great communicators of this process in their communities: the voter education agents” (De Maia 1996:151). As such it is interesting to observe the performance of this on the news media and the election issues that were covered by the media and discussed with spouses, co-workers, friends and neighbours. Another reason to study elections is that “elections [can] yield masses of quantitative data amenable to statistical analysis” (Denver 2007:4). Exactly who is going to win an election and with what margin of victory is a matter of some debate. This Paper contributes to that debate by reflecting on some of the long and short-term factors that may affect voting behavior of the 2019 election in Mozambique. The long-term factors of voting behavior include voters’ social characteristics, such as: class, religion and ethnicity but also their party identification. The social determinant theory of voting behavior resulted from Lazarsfeld and colleagues (Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet 1944, Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee 1954) while the party identification 2theory of voting behavior derived from Campbel et al. (1960). These theories assumed that voters’ social characteristics and their psychological attachment to a political party were determinants affecting their political preference. Click here to read.
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