ABSTRACT
The study of Mozambique is, on a first impression at least, the study of another world, not just by comparison with Botswana but by comparison with Namibia, Senegal and Tanzania. The average income per head of Senegal may be nearly double that of Mozambique, but that of Tanzania is only a little higher than it is in Mozambique. On the basis of what Mozambique was economically and socially in 1990, there was a realistic ground for believing that there would also be a somewhat unpleasant overspill in the political domain. In Mozambique, the party system was thus not entirely dependent on the key political ‘movement’, although such a key ‘movement’ did exist in Mozambique as well and it did develop in the context of the violent independence struggle against Portuguese colonial power. The truth is that the question of the wealth of President Armando Emilio Guebuza was not genuinely discussed in the context of the nature of Mozambique politics.
