The Quality of Democracy: An Analysis of the Mozambican
Legislature Capacity and Responsiveness
Carlos Shenga
MA Candidate, Department of Political studies
Research Associate, ALP (African Legislature Project)
Democracy in Africa Research Unity
University of Cape Town
1
Abstract
This study explores the quality of democracy by examining legislative capacity and
performance in Mozambican case. The study finds very poor legislative capacity visà-vis executive and president. The entire state authority is concentrated in the
president who is both head of state and of government. The president can dissolve the
parliament if it censures the government program and the parliament can not hold the
head of government accountable. It also find that even though the Mozambican
legislature has formal structures to deal with issues of national interests, in practice,
some of them are far away to be effective and to contribute for democracy. Regarding
to legislative resources, I find that the Assembly of the Republic has very little
financial and infrastructural resources in sense that there is no extension of
parliament structure at provincial level, very few MPs are skilled and the skilled
parliament staff in the committees and plenary are not being taken in advantage.
Regarding to legislative performance, while public opinion perceive that MPs are far
away from representing their communities and citizens in constituencies, they are
more likely to perform well. However, the study found very low levels of democracy in
Mozambique.
2
The Quality of Democracy: An Analysis of the Mozambican
Legislature Capacity and Responsiveness
1. Introduction
In Mozambique few have been written on parliament and its members. When I was
writing my honors thesis on The Role of Mozambican Parliament in representation of
civil society interests, 1994 – 2001 (Shenga, 2002), I found only one academic work
focusing on Mozambican parliament entitled: Institutions and Democratization in
African Context: Multiparty and Legislative Organization in Mozambique (19941999) (Macuane, 2000).
To date one contribution came from Pereira and Shenga when the South African
Institute of International Affairs invited researchers in all 13 SADC countries “to
conduct research into the state of parliamentary democracy and to make
recommendation on how parliamentary democracy might be improved, strengthen and
sustained (Pereira & Shenga, 2005). The Mozambican country report concluded that
the parliament is weak institution. It has no power to oversight executive and to hold
it accountable, and members have limited expertise to exert their responsibility of
law-making. The existing channels for public engagement with the parliament are still
far from effective. The absence of any program to guide the work of standing
committees, such as „relationship with the constituency‟ is a major weakness vis-à-vis
parliament engagement with civil society (Shenga, 2002; Pereira and Shenga, 2005).
Although these studies provide some insights into the internal structure and
parliamentary practice, they just analyze the phenomena at institutional level. Based
on ALP (African Legislature Project) framework, this study explores the quality of
democracy by examining legislative institutional capacity and responsiveness, not
only at institutional level but also, at the expert and the mass levels. The degree in
which the legislature is institutionalized and responsive or performs its main
responsibilities is expected to affect the quality of democracy. The more institutional
capacity vis-à-vis executive and the high responsiveness the legislature has the more
likely is to enhance the quality of democracy. Since ALP do not have yet
comprehensive measures of legislative responsiveness or performance, some
questions remain largely unanswered. My own experience as parliamentary assistant
in Mozambican parliament, that is, the Assembly of the Republic, from 2001 to 2006,
and field work conducted in January 2007 helped to offer some inputs, in general.
Diamond and Morlino, as well as many contributors of Assessing the Quality of
Democracy highlight the importance of quality of democracy toward support for the
legitimacy of regime and consolidation, pointing out that “reforms to improve
democratic quality are essential if democracy is to achieve the broad and durable
legitimacy that marks consolidation” (Diamond and Morlino, 2005). Democratic
consolidation must resolve problems of public dissatisfaction and even
disillusionment. They show that “the broad decline of public confidence in
governmental and political institutions, the growing citizen alienation from political
3
parties in particular, and the widespread perceptions that democratic governments and
politicians are increasingly corrupt, self-interested and unresponsive led to a „crisis of
democracy‟ (Diamond and Morlino, 2005).
The legislature can enhance the quality of democracy if they are responsive to their
constituency interests. The more the legislature responsiveness or represents their
citizens, the more the quality of democracy provide. However, this responsiveness
depends on the degree of legislature institutional capacity. Institutional capacity of the
legislature is defined here “as instrument that give parliaments the potential to exert
influence and perform their main responsibilities” (Nijzink, Mozaffar & Azevedo,
2006). While legislative responsiveness is more expected influencing its
representation responsibility, legislative capacity is more expected shaping its
oversight and law-making responsibilities.
Legislative capacity is measured by two dimensions, according to the African
Legislature framework: first, the relative powers and levels of autonomy of the
legislature and second, the infrastructural, financial and human resources available to
institution. The relative powers and levels of autonomy of the legislature including its
internal structure also shape the resources available to the legislature. The more
powerful, autonomous and complex the legislature, the more resources they have in
terms of infrastructures, finances and skills on both MPs and staff, and the high is its
performance. Moreover, political dynamics like electoral outcomes, parties and party
system and the leadership style is assumed as intervening factors shaping legislature
performance and quality of democracy according to ALP analytical framework.
2. Legislative Capacity
Relative powers and levels of autonomy
Based on some indicators developed by African Legislature Project, in this section, I
explore institutional capacity of the Mozambican parliament by probing first relative
powers and levels of autonomy on formal rules like the constitution and standing
order. The poor legislative capacity suggests poor accomplishment in exerting its
main responsibilities. However, since it is on regime type where we can observe
distribution of power and levels of autonomy among state institutions let me before
shortly analyze the system of government that Mozambique has.
I characterize the system of government of Mozambique as presidential. By definition
presidential system is the one in which state powers are concentrated in the president
or the head of state. In Mozambique, the entire state authority rest on the president of
the republic, which is both the head of state and of government; the president
nominates all chairpersons of the judiciary and the legislature just ratifies their
nomination. The legislature cannot hold the head of government accountable since the
constitution allow him to delegate the premier doing that whenever he or she wants.
The premier is simply nominated by the president. Moreover, as we will observe
below with more details, the president dissolves the parliament if it does censure the
government. As such, this is the case to say that the system of government in
Mozambique is highly presidentialized, suggesting little likelihood of the
4
Mozambican parliament to exert oversight and law-making responsibilities and then
contributing for democratization.
By analyzing legislative capacity more specifically, the first aspect in which I start
analyzing it is the 1) power to remove the executive. If the legislature is able to
remove executive then we conclude that the legislature is powerful or has high level
of autonomy. Is the legislature able to remove executive?
When examining formal rules, the data show evidence of little optimism of the
legislature power removing executive. In Mozambican case, removing executive is a
long and incomplete journey that passes through: first, the legislature dissolution and
then, the proper removal of executive, excluding the head of government, with simple
majority. Indeed, after presentation and debate of government program to the
parliament “the non-approval of the (government) program by the parliament signifies
its dissolution (No. 2 of Article 108 of the standing order) by the head of state (or of
government) who call for next election. Under new legislature the rejection of
government program by the second time by the Assembly of the Republic suggests
dismissal of all members of government, excluding its head (Number 3 of article 108
of the standing order).
In order words, if the Assembly of the Republic censure the government then the head
of state (or of government) respond dissolving parliament. The executive is only
removed if the parliament censures the government for second time, that is, after new
legislative election; however, this does not include the head of government. This
suggests weakness of the legislature vis-à-vis executive or its lower degree of
autonomy, since the exercise of the power to remove executive is less likely to occur
because the legislature fears to be dissolved. Due this weakness and lower level of
legislative autonomy the power to remove the executive never was exerted, in
practice.
Turning to 2) power impeach I probe whether the legislature can impeach the head of
state or of government. The results show affirmatively but, with super majority. This
is possible in case of criminal acts practiced by the head of state. In fact, the
constitution says that, in case of criminal acts, “it is a duty of the parliament to request
to the general attorney of the republic to raise penal action against the president, by
proposal of one-third and approved with majority of two-thirds of MPs” (No 3 of
article 153). From the date that the case is being judged according to the
pronunciation of „executive order‟, the president remains suspended and his
condemnation signifies destitution from the position.
However, in practice, this impeachment never occurred and will less likely to occur
since the general attorney is not independent and autonomous. This institution is
nominated and dismissed by the head of state (section h of article 159 of the
constitution). Current trends show straight favouritism of general attorney to the head
of state or of government, supporting political corruption and lack of will in fighting
it. Indeed, in spite of high level of perception of official corruption (CPI, 2006;
Afrobarometer, 2005), general attorney has not accepted those corruption level
(Mediafax of November 15, 2006), and in spite of lack of elite commitment fighting
against it, he insist that “there is a political will” (STV, 2007) on the matter, defending
so the government.
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3) Power emend is another legislative capacity consideration that I look at examining
the relative power and legislature level of autonomy. The ability of emend bills is
considered in the ALP framework as key for legislative capacity suggesting that the
more legislative bills emend the more its strengths. Is the Mozambican legislature
able to emend bill?
The response is affirmative. The standing order section which deal with emends show
that the Assembly of the Republic has power to emend bills that are appreciated and
debated in that institution. When the bills are submitted for appreciation in the
standing committees and latter for debate in the legislative plenary they are submitted
to amendments if necessary. In reality, the standing order refer that the proposal of
emend (from committee) of the original bill are distributed to MPs when possible
three days before debate (No 1 of article 96). If during the debate (in the plenary)
appear proposal of emend to the text in appreciation, these can be taken into account
if argued (No 2).
But what kind of emend the Assembly of the Republic does? Are legislative emends
contributing for enhance the quality of democracy?
Some would point to alterations of formal structure of the bills by bringing their
clearance as examples of emends with democratic values calling them “significant
emends”. This is what has been occurring to some extent with some bills. In spite of
these “significant emends”, none of them present evidences that allow us to assess the
quality of democracy, with exception to only one, that is, electoral law. In fact, as
result of “public debate” and perhaps donor influences, the Assembly of the Republic
removed the threshold of five percent in the Proportional Representation electoral
system to allow political parties to obtain parliament seat by approving the new
electoral law1. Removing the threshold the legislature improves the quality of
democracy by enlarging the scope of political competition and participation. Thus, in
the next election is expected the appearance of more candidates and political parties
providing or promising more goods for voters and mobilizing more supporters to
participate at politics.
This unique and recent case of legislative contribution for improvement of democratic
procedures, such as political competition and participation, occurred in legislation
initiated by proper parliament. Legislation of initiative of government has mostly
suffering only alteration of formal structure or “significant emends”. Is this the case to
refer it as a rubberstamp of government legislation initiative instead of emerging
legislature? I think that further analysis on this topic need to be done.
After probing power emend I go deep examining whether this power is extended to
bills of budget. 4) Is the legislature able to emend the government budget? The data
show evidences affirmatively, suggesting reallocation within government budget
across MDA‟s. Indeed, the standing order says “having need for the reformulation of
the state budget, the plenary, aiming to guarantee the continuity of temporary
1
However, more reform is still demanded in electoral law: all electoral institutions must not be
dominated by the ruling party. At this stage political competition and participation will actually
increase more.
6
functioning of institutions can re-conduct duodecims from the previous year” (article
110).
Nevertheless, this power never was exerted by the Mozambican legislature. Analyzing
the bill of budget submitted to the legislature and its law I find that the amount of
budget submitted by government is always the same after its approval by the
Assembly of the Republic. The Assembly of the Republic only changes the formal
structure of the bill of budget by bringing its clearances, such as in other bills.
According to chairperson of committee of plan and budget ,the highest achievement
of the committee on appreciation of bill of budget was the improvements made in its
formal structure especially maps attached on it2. The maps presented by the
government were too much aggregated and of difficult understanding, so the
committee worked in sense to bring clearance on bill of budget by demanding for
more details.
Due political dynamic from electoral outcomes, the legislature never challenged the
government to remove unnecessary excessive expense from one sector to another like
those that can directly or indirectly sustain democracy and economy or reduce
poverty. This refers for instance to creation of Maputo city governor, that is, an
institution without clear competence or with competence that overlap and contradict
with of the city mayor3. How in one city can be created two governments? Actually,
the expenses related to that institution like, salaries, cabinet, infrastructures,
representation, vehicles, etc should be allocated to poverty reduction programs. This
is what the Assembly of the Republic never changed.
Another strange thing is that government plans to create similar institutions (to be
called local administrators) in other cities where were already installed legitimated
municipal governments4. Is this the strategy of the ruling party to seat their members
in state bureaucracy and take control of cities where they do not have much
legitimacy, like Beira? Will the Assembly of the Republic remove the budget
allocated from those institutions allocating in programs for poverty alleviation or
improvement of people living standards if those institutions are created challenging so
executive? This is the challenge that the Mozambican legislature has if the ruling
party continue using citizen contribution to seat their own members and achieve non
public interests.
Moreover, I go deep analyzing whether legislature has 5) power to increase budget.
There is a clear constitutional provision that deny the Assembly of the Republic
power to increase budget. This provision say ”the MPs and parliamentary groups
cannot present bill which can direct or indirectly increase expenses or reduce taxes of
state or that can modify the economic year in course” (No 2 of article 183). This
suggests that the legislative 6) power to initiate legislation5 is fallacious. How can the
2
Data collected during the time that I was parliamentary assistant in the committee of plan and budget,
from mid-2001 to early 2004.
3
While the Maputo city governor is appointed by the head of state, the city mayor is directly elected by
18 years and older Maputo citizens for five years term.
4
This plan was stated in January 2007 by the Minister of State Administration on STV television.
5
The constitution reveals that the Assembly of the Republic can initiate legislation through its
individual members, its committees, and parliamentary groups (article 183). However, most of bills
7
constitution say that legislative have power to initiate legislation while it cannot
present bill that increase expenses knowing that almost all bills increase expenses?
In whatever way, what I observe is that if the legislative needs to initiate and approve
bills that increase budget then need to negotiate first with government departments.
This occurred when the Assembly of the Republic initiated legislation for social
security of its members (Law No 21/2002 of October 21), and enlargement of the
general frame of human resources of the Secretariat of the Assembly of the Republic
(Bulletin of the Republic of December 31, 2003).
Similarly to power to increase budget, the 7) power to initiate spending bills is also
refused. Supporting on the same constitutional provision for power to increase budget
we observe that power to initiate spending bills is also denied to parliament (see
above No 2 of Article 183).
Finally, regarding to 8) power to confirm executive appointment we asked: does the
legislature have to approve selected executive appointments? The constitutional
provisions show that the legislative has no power to confirm executive appointment.
The competence of nominating the premier, ministers, deputy-ministers, governors,
vice chancellors, central bank officials is under responsibility of the president of the
republic (article 160). The parliament can only ratify the nomination of chairs of high
court, constitutional council, administrative court, and deputy chair of high court
(article 179).
These scenarios presented for these eight indicators of legislature capacity, especially
level of autonomy and relative power, confirm Pereira and Shenga (2005) that the
Mozambican parliament is weak institution and with lower degree of autonomy vis-àvis executive even though we observe some “significant improvements”. Powerful
legislatures and with high levels of autonomy in relation to executive are more likely
to occur in parliamentary system rather than presidential one (Nijzink, Shaheen and
Azevedo, 2006), like Mozambique. These lacks of legislative power and autonomy in
relation to executive/president, as well as electoral outcomes, and internal structure
and resources, as we will observe next, is influential in legislative law-making and
oversight responsibilities. Instead of oversighting and producing legislations, the
legislative works more as rubber stamp in sense that bills emends almost do not
contribute for stable democratic institutions, and also as a government defender.
Legislative internal structure
After observing that the Assembly of the Republic is weak and lack autonomy
relatively to executive I examine first its internal structure and then resources. How
the parliament structure looks like? The standing order shows that the Assembly of
the Republic is composed by three organs: the plenary, the steering committee, and
working or standing committees (Law, no 6/2001 of April 30). While the plenary has
higher decision power, the steering committee coordinates all activities carried out by
appreciated and debated in the Assembly of the Republic are initiated by the government which has not
only more technical and human capacity but also is powerful.
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standing committees and the plenary. The standing committees appreciate and debate
in specialty bill that are approved by the plenary. Beyond standing committees the
parliament can create ad-hoc committees which aim to investigate and report on a
specific (emerging) issue; and inquest committees. This has the autonomy and judicial
authority to investigate the legality and functioning of public institutions. It
investigates the cases in closed doors and its final reports are sending to general
attorney to prosecute those who are found guilty.
Due electoral outcomes and parties and party system, most of ad-hoc and inquest
committees have performed badly toward democracy. For instance, during the
appreciation for revision of electoral law in previous mandate (2000-2004), the
specialized ad-hoc committee placed more emphasis consulting parties represented in
parliament marginalizing minor parties and broader civil society opinion (see Pereira
and Shenga, 2005). Progress on electoral law was only found recently when the
current legislature (2005-2009) consulted other opinions beyond parliamentary groups
and removed the threshold of five percent on PR system. However, the current
electoral law still continues to favor the ruling party since all electoral institutions are
dominated by the ruling party. This makes the ruling party winning both presidential
and parliamentary elections. The political oppositions non-represented in parliament
are marginalized from political process because they seem to make no difference.
They are fragmented, weak and less institutionalized (Pereira and Shenga, 2005). The
leadership style of their leaders is more concerned with money rather than democracy.
The ad-hoc committee (1995-1999) for revision of constitution ended up without
approving new constitution. In addition, the inquest committees to investigate the
facts of November 9, 20006 (2000-2004); as well as to investigate land usurpation in
Inhambane province (1995-1999) ended up submitting their conclusive reports to the
general attorney. However, after many years that the case end up, the parliament
never published those reports to inform their citizens, meaning lack of legislative
vertical accountability7.
These findings suggest that even though the Mozambican legislature has formal
structures to deal with issues of national interests, in practice, some of them are far
away to be effective and to contribute for democracy.
Are these structures spread across the entire country? Even though the parliamentary
committees‟ members travel across the entire country in each 15-21 days each year
consulting and oversighting, there is no legislative structures extended outside capital
city (Maputo). With respect to this I do not consider the existing provincial
administrative structures of the secretariat of the Assembly of the Republic as
parliamentary structure since these only help receiving MPs in traveling when they
exert their oversight responsibility. They are only composed by civil servants and not
MPs. By narrowing the relation between representative and citizens who voted them
the parliament should create „constituency offices‟ where MPs with support of two to
three parliamentary assistants should collect citizens concerns helping them to solve
6
These facts refer to death suffocation of hundreds of citizens by the government who were
demonstrating against 1999 election results. The demonstration was national and organized by the main
opposition. The degree of violence resulted from the demonstration vary across regions.
7
While horizontal accountability is across state institutions, vertical accountability is from state
institution to civil society institution or organization, like media, other NGO; and citizen above all.
9
their problems beyond other tasks. This would reduce the number of petitions that the
petition committee have bee struggle with.
Apart from the aforementioned structures, parliamentary groups and parliament
technical support service play important roles. Without administrative and technical
support the parliament cannot function; and without parliamentary groups the
parliament will be an empty house. However, I do not examine the characteristics of
these “parliamentary structures” here.
Legislative Resources
After internal structure I move analyzing legislative resources. As the parliament is
less powerful and autonomous compared to executive and its structure is less effective
even though standing committees provide “significant emends” to executive bills I
expect to find low parliamentary resources.
The size of parliaments is cited influencing their capacity (Nijzink, Shaheen and
Azevedo, 2006). First, “members are one of the most important human resources of a
legislature” since “they offer their individual skills, contacts and time to fulfill the
collective responsibilities of the institutions” (Nijzink, Shaheen and Azevedo,
2006:7). More members signify more hands appreciating bills, drafting amendments,
scrutinizing budget, reading department reports and introducing motions, asking
questions, attending committee and plenary meetings, participating in debate or
voting. Second, size influences capacity by affecting the need for human,
infrastructural and financial resources. Because the size of parliament is related to the
population they represent I examine this aspect related to adult or voter population.
In Mozambican case we observe that the proportion of MPs to adult population is
250/10 million or .000025 percent, suggesting that there are 40 000 citizens for one
MP. This proportion is lower compared to South Africa (110 000 citizens per MP)
and Nigeria (320 000 citizens per MP) suggesting good sign, but higher with regard to
Cape Verde (6 000 citizens per MP)8.
However, by taking into account country poor roads condition for traveling and its
extended geographical size (801 590 sq km) it is difficult for that proportion be
effective. In addition, there is no budget allocated for individual MP and parliament
structure at provincial level where most of them pass their time when the parliament is
not functioning. This is, indeed, related to low state resources. The Mozambican
parliament is housed in its own office in Maputo but no more. It only functions 90
days out of 261 useful days each year. These 90 days can be added to 15 to 21 days
for oversight and consultation in provinces only for members of standing (or working)
committees. It is to be seen that roughly half (48 percent)9 of MPs are not members of
any committee in the Assembly of the Republic (Shenga, forthcoming). Moreover,
MPs do not have office. While members of standing committees may enjoy their
8
See Norton (2002:15) available online: http://devdata.worldbank.org/dataonline/
This data refer to first multiparty legislature, however it does not differ so much with respect to
second and the current multiparty legislature since from that period to date only one standing
committee was added in the current standing order (Law No 6/2001, of April 30), that is, petition
committee.
9
10
committee office, which is most used by the committee chair and reporteur, those who
are not member of any committee do not have space for work signifying little job they
do.
The parliamentary secretariat entails research service; however it does not carry out
research since there are no researchers. Parliamentary research comes from expert
outside parliament (Shenga, 2002) hired by parliamentary groups but paid by the
legislature. Nevertheless, there is many higher qualified (honors degree) staff doing
only secretariat work in parliamentary committees, suggesting that the legislature is
not taking their qualification in advantage. Indeed, we observe in Figure 1 that almost
all committees‟ staff in Mozambican parliament has some years of university
education or completed honors degree10. But because these resources are not being
used fully or according to the qualification they have I conclude that the Assembly of
the Republic does not have qualified resources. The existent committee staffs are used
only for secretariat work and organizing meeting or hearings.
Figure 1: Distribution of levels of education among committees and plenary staff
in the current multiparty legislature (2005-2009)
100
79
80
60
40
21
19
20
5
0
Secondary
University
percentage
count
Source: Interviews with Staffs from Division of Support for Working (Standing) Committees
and Department of Support for the Plenary (to be updated).
Regarding to MPs we observe only one-quarter (27 percent) of them have university
level of education, suggesting their low levels of expertise (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Distribution of MPs levels of education in first multiparty legislature
(1995-1999) [N (universe of parliament population) =246, missing cases=4].
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
142
37
27.2
15
Prim ary
Secondary
percentage
10
67
57.7
University
count
„University‟ category means „some years of university‟ and „honours degree‟.
11
Source: Shenga, C. forthcoming. Explaining Parliamentary Functions in the First Multiparty
Legislature (1995-1999). Evidence from Who is Who in the Assembly of the Republic 11.
In terms of financial resources, the Assembly of the Republic received Mt 153 465
600 in 2002 (Resolution Number 9/2001, of December 20), equivalent to US$ 6 138
624. This amount is very little compared to government department of (justice),
which received in same year (compare this amount with only one government
department).
In short, we observe that the Assembly of the Republic has very little financial and
infrastructural resources in sense that there is no extension of parliament structure at
provincial level, very few MPs are skilled and the skilled parliament staff in the
committees and plenary are not being taken in advantage.
2. The legislative responsiveness
Democratic responsiveness is what democracy achieves in terms of what citizens
want. Based on definition of democratic responsiveness (Diamond and Morlino,
2005), legislatures are responsive when the legislative process and procedures and
substances of democratic game induces legislators to approve policies that citizens
want. I start measuring legislative responsiveness by evaluating legislative
performance in law-making in second multiparty legislature (2000-2004).
The results show reduction in levels of legislative performance in law making. While
2000 first and second ordinary sessions produced most (51) legislation, majority (43)
of them were resolutions. In contrast, in 2002 the parliament produced more (15) laws
compared to resolutions (8); however, it was the year that little legislation was
produced (23). In 2003, it was registed growth to 35 legislations but in 2004 it
decreased to 30. This study do not advance reasons for these variations but I suspect
that country political dynamics, and legislative capacity shaped legislative agenda and
performance.
Table 1: Legislative production in Second multiparty legislature, 2000 to 2004
Laws Resolutions Motions Total
2000
I Ordinary Session, January 14 to 18
1
II Ordinary Session, February 29 to May 13
I Extraordinary Session, July, 10-12
III Ordinary Session, Oct. 13 to December 18
Total
2001
IV Ordinary Session, February 28 to May 4
3
6
8
12
3
27
43
51
11
Primary category means „some years of primary education‟ and „completed primary education‟.
Secondary includes „some years of secondary‟ and „completed secondary‟ education, and university
means some years of university, degree and post graduation.
12
V Ordinary Session Oct. 15 to December 21
Total
2002
VI Ordinary Session, March 1 to May 3
II Extraordinary Session, September 10 to 20
VII Ordinary Session, Oct. 16 to December
17
Total
2003
VII Ordinary Session, March 3 to May 8
IX Ordinary Session, October 16-24 to
November 27 – December 20
Total
2004
X Ordinary Session, March 1 to May 13
III Extraordinary Session, August 26 to
September 1
Total
15
15
5
5
5
3
15
8
3
8
11
13
11
24
7
3
16
4
10
20
1
31
6
23
35
30
Source: Data collected and systemized by author
Another way to measure responsiveness is to examine whether elections ensure that
the parliament reflects the views of voters, MPs performance, how often MPs listen to
citizens, how often they should spend in constituency, and how often they actually
spend.
The 2005 Afrobarometer survey results show that 74 percent of respondents
expressed that MPs should spend at least once a year in constituency to visit the
community and citizens. However, only less than half (43 percent) say MPs spend at
least once in constituency, among them only 8 percent spend at least weekly. This
suggests little likelihood of Mozambican parliament representing public interest. On
the other hand, around 56 percent of respondents expressed that parliament are „more
likely‟ or „likely‟ to reflect their views, and 73 percent „strongly approve‟ or
„approve‟ MPs performance. Around half (52 percent) perceive that MPs do their
best to listen what people have to say (Afrobarometer, 2005).
In summary, while these public opinion perceptions reveal that while MPs are far
away from representing their communities and citizens in constituencies, on the other
hand they tell us relative good MPs performance/responsiveness. But are they related
to democratic procedures like accountability, rule of law, competition and
participation; and democratic substances, such as freedom and equality? Or in what
level of democracy the Assembly of the Republic performs its main responsibilities of
law-making, oversight and representation?
3. The Mozambican quality of democracy
Can parliament enhance the quality of democracy in Mozambique? Nijzink and
colleagues emphasize that the first step in addressing this question is analyzing regime
13
type in relation to the current level of democracy (Nijzink, Shaheen and Azevedo,
2006). Regime type is broadly seen as factor that determines the country quality of
democracy since it is on it in which we observe how the legislature is autonomous and
has power in relation to executive or president, knowing that legislature is most
important institution for democracy and its consolidation.
We have observed that Mozambique regime type is presidential, which is
characterized by strong president, and weak parliament and without autonomy vis-àvis executive. While political reform in South Africa, Cape Verde, Mauritius, São
Tomé e Princípe, and Botswana have been leading these countries to be classified as
„liberal democracies‟, and in Ghana, Mali, Namibia, Benin, Madagascar, Seychelles,
Senegal, Malawi and Niger as „electoral democracies‟, in Mozambique the regime is
at best „ambiguous‟ (Diamond, 2002), suggesting that the level of Mozambican
democracy is characterized by many grey zones or simply low.
However, because Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi (2005) point out that “with
fairer elections, Mozambique could graduate (at least) to status of „electoral
democracy‟” I assess the „quality of democracy‟ (Diamond and Morlino, 2005)
employing its two of three main dimensions: 1) procedural, including both vertical
and horizontal accountabilities, rule of law, competition and participation; and 2)
substances like freedom and equality. As we observed earlier the third dimension that
is responsiveness, which is a chain that link the first two, was to some extent assessed
under last section.
Democratic procedures
Rule of law means that all citizens are equal before the law, and that the law
themselves are clear, publicly known, universal, stable, non-retroactive, and fairly
consistently applied to all citizens by an independent judiciary (O‟Donnell, 2005,
Diamond and Morlino, 2005: xiv). Even though in Mozambique rule of law fulfill
some of those characteristics, judiciary is not independent and autonomous,
suggesting that law is not equally enforced toward everyone, leaving above law many
alleged „untouchable‟ people, which have been related to organized crime and
political corruption. Because police has been perceived as one of most corrupt sector
(Afrobarometer survey, 2002; 2005) and do not protect citizens against crime many
people do justice by proper hands in periphery of Maputo city. In addition, due
country „low level of information‟ (Shenga, forthcoming) law is not publicly known.
By assessing rule of law through expert perception we observe that Mozambique
present very low score (31). This figure is World Bank rule of law score for 2005 on
scale of 1 (low) to 100 (high). In addition, WB score for 2005 on corruption is also
low (31), suggesting high level of corruption. Also Transparency International experts
perceive Mozambique as one of the most corrupt countries in the world (CPI, 2006).
This level was not accepted by the general attorney who - have been defending
government against corruption (STV, 2007) – he simply stated that TI has its own
indicators to measure corruption” (Mediafax, November 15, 2006). These
characteristics of rule of law in Mozambique show that corruption is not detected,
even minimized and punished in branches of state; the legal state leave areas
dominated by organized crime. Under these conditions democracy will less likely to
14
survive and also to deliver substances or goods like social, economic and political
equality civil liberties and political rights. This is just an example of the environment
where Mozambican parliament operates.
The literature suggests that democratic requirement is related to political system that
allows regular, free, and fair competitive elections (Diamond and Morlino, 2005).
Analyzing level of competition in the electoral system we observe that all electoral
institutions including the constitutional council are dominated by the ruling party
officials reducing so the scope of political competition. These electoral institutions
have not been taking seriously irregularities raised by oppositions and other civil
society agencies. As such, Mozambican electoral system is less likely to allow
alternation of power, which is one of key element of endurance of democracy.
With reduction of the scope of political competition people may become disgusted
and disillusioned with elections, contributing for reduction of political participation.
Indeed, Table 2 shows decrease of voter turnout from 1994 to 2004 legislative
elections.
Table 2: Turnout in legislative elections (%)
Voter turnout
1994
87.9
1999
68.1
2004
36.3
Source: African Election Database. http://africanelections.tripod.com/mz.html (4 April 2007)
After assessing rule of law, political competition and participation and find little
optimism of democratic procedure of the quality of democracy in Mozambique I
analyze accountability, which “is the obligation of elected political leaders to answer
for their political decisions when asked by citizens-electors or other constitutional
bodies” (Diamond and Morlino, 2005). Shedler () specify that accountability occur
when political leaders provide information on political actions, justify reasons for
those actions, and voter punish or compensate them in ballot box depending on their
performance.
The literature distinguishes between vertical and horizontal accountability (Diamond
and Morlino, 2005). The accountability across state institutions is called horizontal
while from state institutions to civil society entities like media, civil society agencies
and citizen is vertical.
Assessing vertical accountability we observe that Mozambicans MPs are accountable
to their political parties rather than citizens or voters since voting is based on party
list. Instead of party, voters might want to punish or compensate individual MPs but
this is only possible if they vote for individual candidates. In addition, the parliament
rarely justifies reasons for its decisions when faced with huge problem. When the
dominant parliamentary group approved government bill on state account with
various irregularities its members simply said to media that the opposition do not
understand anything about public account instead of justifying the reasons of their
choice, knowing that those irregularities were officially raised by experts from
account court, that is administrative court in Mozambican case.
15
Moving to horizontal accountability, in 2005 first legislative ordinary session,
regarding to same bill the premier refused to answer about results of auditing and
inspection made in different institutions financed by state. Most of these institutions
bankrupted due mismanagement and perhaps corruption. Her excuse was that the state
do lot of auditing and inspection each year so their results are huge and difficult to
present. Due the electoral system which favors the ruling party, the major
parliamentary group has been defending its government branch. The parliament
cannot also hold the head of government accountable since the constitution allow this
figure to delegate the premier doing that whenever he or she wants. Since
Mozambique embarked to multiparty competition the head of government went only
twice to the parliament. After not responding many questions from the main
opposition, and the majority parliamentary group defending its leader the head of
government never more stepped the parliamentary ground. When he goes there
appears as head of state to talk about the state of nation in which MPs are not allowed
to raise questions, according to the constitution. It should be seen that lack of
accountability means lack of transparency and ethic in governance and then existence
of political connection and corruption.
Democratic substances
The quantity of goods or substances, including freedom or civil, social and political
rights and equality, that Mozambicans receive from democratic governance matter to
assess its quality.
Even though the constitution guarantees citizen rights and liberties that were denied in
Frelimo party-state regime, in practice there are many limitation to Mozambicans
ability to enjoy these civil and political rights. Before I mention these limitations let
me first specify in which consist these rights. Political rights include the right to vote,
to stand for office, to campaign, and to organize political parties (Diamond and
Morlino, 2005:xxv). These rights enforce political participation and competition
including vertical accountability. Civil rights include personal liberty, security and
privacy, freedom of thought, expression, and information, including the right to form
and join trade unions and political parties, freedom of movement, and the right to
legal defense and due process. Finally, civil economic rights include the rights to
private property and entrepreneurship, employment rights, the right to fair play and
time off, and the right to collective bargaining.
The limitation to Mozambicans ability to enjoy these civil and political rights are due
lack of an “independent, capable and constitutionally authoritative judiciary along
with a broader legal system and culture that ensure the rule of law” (Diamond and
Morlino, 2005). As we have observed earlier Mozambique does not have an
autonomous judiciary system. The ruling party dominates and controls the judiciary.
Also the absence of independent electoral commission constrains the right to vote and
campaigning, suggesting reduction of the scope of political participation and
competition. There is no strong and vibrant civil society, including the human right
watch that can defend freedom and the integrity of electoral process. In addition, the
general attorney who prosecute criminals also is not independent and favor the ruling
16
party, as aforementioned; and the police who protect people against crime is
infiltrated by gangsters12.
Examining freedom and political rights using expert perception our data show little
progress in Mozambique. Indeed, since 1997 to 2005 the parliament has been
operating in a situation where civil liberties and political rights did not improve
(Table 3). During this period an investigative journalist and senior bank officer
respectively were brutally assassinated in 2000 and 2001. Both were investigating
corruption cases involving alleged ruling party officials or “untouchables”.
Mozambicans saw live spectacular trial of the first case with biased judge. This led to
raise „autonomous process‟ for the journalist. To date no trial was conducted
including the case of the senior bank officer. Also hundreds of people found death
suffocation in prison after being arrested in demonstration in 2000, and 12 died in
September 2005 when the police opened fire to crowd of ruling party and opposition
supporters which were fighting against each other. It was actually the ruling party
supporters who attacked the opposition one who were coming from their party
meeting discussing about local election results in Mocimboa da Praia municipality.
The World Bank score for 2005 for Mozambique on political stability and absence of
violence is below the average (47 percent).
Table 3: Mozambique Freedom House, 1994-2005
1994 1995 1996 1997 1997 1998 1999 00 01 02 03 04 05
PR
6
6
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
CL
4
5
5
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
Mean
5
4.5
4
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5
3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5
NF
PF
PF
PF
PF
PF
PF
PF PF PF PF PF PF
PR – Political Rights; CL – Civil Liberties; NF – Not Free; and PF – Partially Free
These figures are Freedom scores on scale of 1 (high) to 7 (low)
Source: Freedom House. 2005. Freedom in the World
As law is not equally enforced toward everyone, corruption is not detected, minimized
and punished, as we observed, there are low chances to find equality among
Mozambicans. While some people can be prosecuted and law enforced against them,
“untouchables” walk around. While the opposition compete for election, the ruling
party “win” it. While few (1/3) have high levels of information, many (2/3) does not
have access to education and media network (Shenga, forthcoming). It is to be seen
that information is relevant for political efficacy and contribute for democratic
citizenship. Regional equality is another aspect that I would like to stress in this
section. While some country regions are less developed due colonial legacies other
relatively developed areas seem to be nowadays strategically discriminated because
support the main opposition. This is the case of Beira city where government have
been reducing investments and instead of supporting local enterprises have been
inspecting them closely to find fails to close them compared to enterprises from other
regions.
12
Statement of both minister and deputy minister of domestic affairs on STV (television).
17
4. Conclusions
This study attempted to explore the quality of democracy in Mozambican context by
examining legislative capacity and performance. The study finds very poor legislative
capacity vis-à-vis executive and president. The entire state authority is concentrated in
the president who is both head of state and of government. The president can dissolve
the parliament if it censures the government program and the parliament can not hold
the head of government accountable. The findings also reveal that even though the
Mozambican legislature has formal structures to deal with issues of national interests,
in practice, some of them are far away to be effective and to contribute for
democracy. Regarding to legislative resources, we observed that the Assembly of the
Republic has very little financial and infrastructural resources in sense that there is no
extension of parliament structure at provincial level, very few MPs are skilled and the
skilled parliament staff in the committees and plenary are not being taken in
advantage. These results support Pereira and Shenga (2005) findings that the
Assembly of the Republic is a weak institution.
Regarding to legislative performance, Afrobarometer public opinion perceptions
revealed that while MPs are far away from representing their communities and
citizens in constituencies, on the other hand they tell us relative good MPs
performance/responsiveness. However, the study found low levels of democracy or
inexistence of democracy in Mozambique.
The quality of democracy that we observed is very low. Starting with Diamond
(2002), Mozambique is not neither „liberal democracy‟ nor at least „electoral
democracy‟ but at best an „ambiguous‟ regime. But because this country has been
recording multiparty elections which is prerequisite for a polity be called democracy I
assessed its extent of democratic procedures and substances. We observed that the
parliament cannot hold government accountable due highly presidentialized system,
law is not enforced toward everyone, political corruption is high and political
competition and participation are constrained by domination of electoral institutions,
including the constitutional council, by the ruling party. Civil liberties and political
rights are low and limited due lack of stable democratic institutions.
These findings suggest that poor legislative capacity is associated with poor country
quality of democracy. The more powerful and autonomous the legislature vis-à-vis
executive is, the more likely the country will democratize and enhance the quality of
democracy.
However, considering that “citizen opinions are ultimately what matter most in terms
of the feasibility of the democratic project” (Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi, 2005: 239),
this topic need more to be assessed through public perceptions. Indeed, complete
academic analysis must take into account both objective and subjective indicators,
both by professionals and citizens
18
5. References
Bratton, M.; Mattes, R. and Gyimah-Boadi, E. 2005. Public Opinion, Democracy and
Market Reform in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Diamond, L. and Morlino, L. 2005. Assessing the Quality of Democracy. Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press.
Macuane, J.J. 2000. Instituições e Democratização no Contexto Africano:
Multipartidariismo e Organização Legislativa em Moçambique (1994-1999) .
Mattes, R. and Gyimah-Boadi, E. 2005. Ghana and South Africa in Assessing the
Quality of Democracy edited by Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino. Baltimore:
John Hopkins University Press.
Nijzink, L.; Shaheen, M. and Azevedo, E. 2006. Can Parliaments Enhance the
Quality of Democracy on the African Continent? An Analysis of Institutional Capacity
and Public Perceptions. CSSR Working Paper No. 160. DARU/CSSR/UCT, Cape
Town.
O‟Donnel, G. 2005. Why the Rule of Law Matters, in Assessing the Quality of
Democracy by Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino. Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press.
Pereira, J. and Shenga, C. 2005. Strengthening Parliamentary Democracy in SADC
Countries. Mozambique Country Report. SAIIA, Pretoria.
Powell Jr., G. B. 2005. The Chain of Responsiveness, in Assessing the Quality of
Democracy by Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino. Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press.
Shedler,
Shenga, C. 2002. O Papel da Assembleia da República na Representação dos
Interesses da Sociedade Civil, 1994-2001 (Honours Dissertation in Public
Administration), UFICS/UEM, Maputo
Shenga, C. Forthcoming. Explaining Parliamentary Functions in the First Multiparty
Legislature (1995-1999). Evidence from Who is Who is the Assembly of the Republic.
Shenga, C. Forthcoming, Commitment to Democracy in Mozambique. Evidence from
Round 2 of the Afrobarometer Survey. (Masters Thesis in Political Studies,
Democratic Governance) University of Cape Town.
Media (Television and Newspaper)
Mediafax of November 15, 2006
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STV Special Report, January of 2007
Website links
Wilkipedia
Transparency International, 2006. Corruption Perception Index
Bertelsmann index
Legislation
2004 Mozambique Constitution
Standing order, Law No 6/2001, of April 30
Electoral law
Resolution No 9/2001, of December 20.
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