Mozambique's International
Relations with South Africa

Dossier MZ-0007, part 18

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18. General Elections in South Africa
and Mozambique, 1994

Mozambicans at voting tables

Above: Mozambicans queuing to vote in the country’s first multi-party elections, held in late October 1994. Previous elections within the single-party system, with multiple candidates, had been held in 1977 and 1986. South Africa’s first democratic elections had taken place earlier, in April.

After South Africa held its first democratic elections in April, newly elected President Nelson Mandela paid his first official visit to Mozambique in July, marking the beginning of a new era in inter-state relations. At the time it was unclear whether the planned Mozambican elections in October would genuinely mark the end of the conflict between the RENAMO rebels and the government, or whether Mozambique would slide back into war as Angola had done. Mutinous behaviour by former soldiers in hastily organised cantonments, was well as signs that “lawlessness, banditry and corruption” were on the increase, did not augur well, according to early reports.

However, the Mozambican elections were won by the Frelimo Party and were grudgingly accepted by RENAMO.

MHN Resources

Consolidated Downloadable Zipped Files

Click on the yellow folder image below to download a zipped file of the eighteenth of a series of dossiers on South Africa-Mozambique relations. The archive covers the year 1994, and contains 28 documents. New items will be added from time to time: this edition of the dossier is dated 23 October 2021.

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