Mozambique’s politics in the digital age: Venâncio Mondlane and a framework for participation under authoritarianism

The impact of social media networks on political participation has attracted significant global scholarly interest, often being hailed as “liberation tools” capable of disrupting state control over civic space, especially within authoritarian contexts. In the Global South, movements such as the “Arab Spring” in North Africa, the “Must Fall” campaigns in South Africa, and more recently, the “#RejectFinanceBill” in Kenya and “Gen Z Madagascar” in Madagascar attest to the power of digital tools in reshaping political participation, offering the disempowered new avenues to challenge state hegemony. What remains limited in the scholarly discourse, particularly in the context of Africa, is how opposition politicians leverage technology to challenge authoritarian regimes and expand civic space. This study examines how Mozambique’s leading opposition figure, Venâncio Mondlane, utilized digital platforms to confront the ruling regime during the 2024-2025 post-electoral crisis, fostering space for dissenting political participation. Employing digital ethnography, observation, and content and thematic analyses, the study identifies a “strategic utilization” of social media networks for political participation. Key strategies combined predominantly digital practices with traditional political techniques adapted to platformised environments, ranging from “informational flooding” and “crowdsourced amplification” to “affective rhetoric”, “staging”, “branding”, and “tactical diversification”. The study argues that these strategies were pivotal in driving the massive engagement in the large-scale protests that disrupted Mozambique between October 2024 and January 2025. Consequently, rather than merely hailing social media networks as “liberation tools”, it emphasizes the significance of a “well-coordinated digital campaign” in enabling these platforms to shape political participation. Notably, these findings propose a framework to examine participation in similar authoritarian contexts.