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Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork conducted in 2009, 2010 and 2012, the present paper discusses "democracy" as interpreted by inhabitants of Mozambique's Barue District and in connection with political praxis concerning hereditary leaders, spirit mediums and party officials.

Paper long abstract:

"Democracy" knows many interpretations and this is no less so in Mozambique. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2009, 2010 and 2012, the present paper discusses "democracy" as interpreted by inhabitants of Mozambique's Barue District and in connection with political praxis concerning hereditary leaders (the so-called "traditional authorities"), spirit mediums and party officials. Though these political leaders co-exist, it is the party-in-power (Frelimo) that dominates political life. The multi-party system in Mozambique is largely incapable of countering the monopolizing tendencies of the party-in-power. The paper argues that this is not due to some cultural inaptness of "democracy" for African situations, but the result of a successful application of certain strategies for the usurpation of political power, strategies that were alien to the political life of the precolonial kingdoms in Mozambique, specifically the Barue kingdom. Though multi-partyism as it exists in the world today may, in certain interpretations, be considered as foreign to Mozambique, it is nevertheless related to the present-day indigenous political reality in Mozambique, and for it to be successful it will have to be congruent with local conceptualizations of "democracy" that do exist locally.