(Bloomberg) — Daniel Chapo, the ruling-party candidate in Mozambique’s Oct. 9 presidential election, said he favors talks to end an Islamic State-backed insurgency that’s delayed TotalEnergies SE’s planned $20 billion liquefied natural gas export project in the northeast of the country.
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The government in the southeast African nation has struggled to contain the insurgency that in 2021 prompted a group led by TotalEnergies to halt work on what was Africa’s biggest private investment, and evacuate its workers. Chapo, a lawyer, said he would employ a two-pronged strategy to end the rebellion.
Policy Shift
“One approach is to combat terrorism on the ground,” he said in an interview. “But also to find a way to dialog with those behind this situation so that we can really overcome this situation so that there can be security and peace in that region, allowing the development of the LNG projects.”
Seeking talks with the instigators of the violence would mark a policy shift by the government, which has so far dismissed the option. The conflict has left at least 5,793 people dead, according to the Cabo Ligado website that tracks the violence, and prompted hundreds of thousands to flee their homes since it began seven years ago.
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Chapo, 47, is the presidential candidate for the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, which has ruled the nation of nearly 35 million since independence from Portugal in 1975. He’s competing against three opposition leaders and is widely expected to win. Chapo was a surprise pick for his party, as a relatively unknown provincial governor who’d never served as a cabinet minister.
Following a large-scale insurgent attack that prompted TotalEnergies to halt its project, incumbent President Filipe Nyusi’s government asked for military help from Rwanda, as well as the 16-member Southern African Development Community. While the regional bloc’s deployment ended in July, Rwanda this year sent an additional 2,000 troops.
Nyusi is stepping down after having served the constitutional limit of two terms. Chapo has at least a 70% chance of winning next week’s election, according to Eurasia Group.
While the foreign troops had helped Mozambique’s forces make big gains against the rebels, there was a resurgence in attacks earlier this year. Since August, fresh offensives by both Rwandan and Mozambican government troops have dislodged the fighters from a key coastal area.
Pouyanné Visit
TotalEnergies Chief Executive Officer Patrick Pouyanné said this week he plans to visit Mozambique this month to meet the president-elect and discuss how the new administration will “maintain this alliance with Rwanda.”
While security has improved, the oil and gas producer is waiting for three export-credit agencies to confirm their commitment to financing the LNG project, Pouyanné told investors on Oct. 2. Provided it resumes this year, production should begin in 2029, he said.
Asked about Rwanda’s ongoing role, Chapo said he’d leave that decision until he’s in office.
“At this moment it’s very difficult to say in detail how this is going to be because I’m a candidate,” he said. “But I am absolutely sure that after I have taken office I will receive the dossier, and only after understanding the details of the dossier in a very detailed way, a response can really be given as to how this cooperation that exists at this moment will be responded to.”
The possibility of renegotiating contracts with multinationals has emerged as a key theme in the campaigns of all four candidates, and Chapo said Mozambique’s government has always been committed to investor stability.
Asked whether he’d continue the nation’s economic program with the International Monetary Fund, Chapo said “we will continue to work with the IMF, we will continue to work with the World Bank, and we will continue to work with these partners which are extremely important for economic stability — most of all the macro-economic stability of Mozambique.”
–With assistance from Borges Nhamire.
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