The Ressano Garcia border, the largest Mozambican land crossing between Mozambique and South Africa, recorded a revenue loss of 400 million Meticais (€5.8 million) during its closure due to post-election protests challenging the election results.

The border was anticipated to handle goods worth 1,700 million Meticais (€24.8 million) in November alone. However, according to Mozambique Tax Authority spokesperson Fernando Tinga, last week’s closure resulted in “around 400 million Meticais (€5.8 million)” in losses, leading to a “shortage” of some goods, especially food products imported from South Africa.

Thousands of private vehicles and cargo trucks were halted on both sides of the border. At the peak of the protests on November 5, protesters set fire to five vehicles belonging to Mozambican border authorities. They vandalised the border post, prompting both countries to completely close the crossing, with trucks queuing on either side.

Since the protests ended on November 7, the border reopened over the weekend. 

“The border is reopened to the flow of people and vehicles. The customs management systems have been re-established, and all conditions have been created for the border to operate again within the required standards,” Fernando Tinga told the press on Saturday in Ressano Garcia, Maputo province.

In southern Mozambique, the border is a critical crossing point for South African exports via the port of Maputo and for South African imports into the Mozambican capital. It was closed for nearly a week due to widespread protests led by presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane.

The border crossing is fully functioning, the systems have been restored, and security has been re-established, said Tinga. The Ressano Garcia border was the only one impacted by the post-election protests across the country. 

After reopening, authorities have reinforced security by deploying Security and Defence Forces to the area, with armoured police and military vehicles stationed near the border crossing.

The unrest began after Mozambique’s National Elections Commission (CNE) announced the results of the October 9 elections on October 24, declaring Daniel Chapo, backed by the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo, the ruling party since 1975), as President with 70.67% of the vote.

Opposition leader Venancio Mondlane, who came in second with 20.32%, stated that he did not recognise the results, which are still pending validation by the Constitutional Council, which has no specific deadline and is still reviewing disputes.

Following nationwide protests that paralysed the country on October 21, 24, and 25, Mondlane called for a seven-day general strike starting on October 31. Demonstrations culminated in Maputo on Thursday, November 7. The protest caused chaos in the capital, with barricades, burning tyres, and police using tear gas and gunfire to disperse the crowds throughout the day.

“At least 1.5 million people marched on November 7 in and around Maputo,” Mondlane said, adding that the protests would continue until electoral truth is restored.

At least three people were killed, and 66 were injured during clashes between protesters and police on November 7, according to Maputo Central Hospital (HCM), the country’s largest health facility.

The number of dead climbs now to around 40, and hundreds of injured.

On Monday morning, the Lebombo Border Post operated generally on the South African side. After weeks of post-election violence in Maputo, people and traders could be seen entering and leaving Mozambique.   

South Africa’s Border Management Authority (BMA) Commissioner, Dr Mike Masiapato, told the media they were forced to close the border in consultation with their Mozambican counterparts after the protesters burned offices and threatened border officials. He said they offered Mozambican immigration officials shelter after they crossed into the South African side for safety reasons. 

Masiapato said they partially opened the border to allow Mozambicans in South Africa to return home or have their passports stamped. They also wanted to enable cargo trucks stuck at the border for days to cross into Maputo since indications were that the protests had subsided. 

“From now on, people are allowed to come through, but, of course, we still want to maintain that we are not necessarily encouraging South Africans to be coming through for holiday purposes. We are still saying we want to encourage Mozambicans who are in South Africa and want to go back to Mozambique so that they can be able to go back home. At the same time, we are also receiving the trucks that are empty coming from the Mozambican side back into South Africa. So, we still consider it a partial opening as it were,” Masiapato said. 

He added that cargo movement was “complicated” because Kilometre Four, a processing centre on the Mozambican side, had been seriously destroyed. 

Protesters damaged or looted computers. Masiapato said Mozambican nationals whose 30-day permits to be in South Africa expired by a day or two would be allowed to renew without being declared “undesirable” immigrants.  

Dr Edwin Yingi, postdoctoral fellow at the University of South Africa’s Political Science Department, said the post-election violence in Mozambique indicates that residents are unhappy with the processes that led to Chapo’s presidential victory.

Opposition leader Mondlane disputed the election outcomes. Dr Yingi maintained that the protests could complicate Mozambique’s security and economic development.

“The problem we have in the case of Mozambique is that this is happening in a country where we are having an insurrection in Cabo Delgado. The country itself is not stable. There is a violent conflict going on in the northern part of Mozambique, and now we see these protests happening. Any newly elected government would not want to face war on new fronts: facing the post-election protests, and also trying to fight insurrection in the form of the Carbo Delgado conflict,” Dr Yingi said. 

He stressed that disputed elections and post-election violence in Mozambique and Zimbabwe threatened stability in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region.  

“Coming to the SADC region as a whole, these post-election disagreements taint the credibility of holding elections. We have one election which happened in Zimbabwe last year, the SADC observer mission group issued a very scathing report on the process of elections. Now, we are having another election, which is disputed in Mozambique.”

“It results in the population of the region losing faith in the credibility of elections, and once we get to the point, we are most likely to see most of these post-election protests or election-related disputes, and they often result in violent conflict. So, it undermines the credibility of the elections, and once that happens, the general citizenry loses faith in the elections, and we are most likely to have an unstable region,” added Dr Yingi.