Mozambique: Social Media and Songs Instead of T-shirts and Caps

Traditional campaigning with centrally produced posters, T-shirts, flags, and caps requires a robust budget. Government was late distributing money to parties, so Renamo, MDM and small parties have not started their campaigns in many places, blaming lack of materials.
Podemos and its presidential candidate, Venâncio Mondlane, are heavily exploiting social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Renamo and the MDM remain almost non-existent on social media.
Podemos seems to be trying to campaign without t-shirts, while Renamo and MDM are not campaigning as they wait for materials. In Namacurra, Zambézia, Podemos is circulating through the district, singing songs and displaying placards with handwritten slogans.
Frelimo controls the State and its finances. It makes agreements with businesses to finance its campaign and, in return, those businesses will be awarded contracts in order to recover the sums given to the campaign. This is an old strategy which used to be financed by business people of Indian origin based in Nacala.

The sums distributed by the State to the political parties are insignificant for an election campaign that prioritises conventional propaganda materials.

Taxi drivers threatened. Supporters of the MDM, in Mucombezi Pina, Vanduzi, Manica province, have been warned by members of Frelimo Party not to continue campaigning in favour of the MDM. They were threatened that if they continued to campaign for their party, they would stopped from driving motorbike-taxis. The intimidation is working, since on Tuesday (27 August) only four MDM members went out to the villages to woo the electorate.

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