Facebook denounced coordinated activities targeting Mozambique from Russia
Elections in Mozambique. Photo by Dércio Tsandzana from September 2019. Used with permission.
Two months since general elections in Mozambique gave an overwhelming victory to the ruling party Frelimo, citizens are now debating whether foreign actors might have interfered with the process.
On October 15, Mozambicans cast ballots for president, parliament and —for the first time— provincial governors. Frelimo reelected the current president Filipe Nyusi, obtained two-thirds of the unicameral legislative seats and elected all governors. The Constitutional Council, Mozambique's highest court, hasn't yet ratified the results, which is contested by the opposition.
On October 30, Facebook announced the suspension of accounts originated in Russia targeting multiple African countries, including Mozambique. The company says the accounts engaged in”inauthentic behavior” and were connected with Russian financier Yevgeniy Prigozhin.
Prigozhin, who has close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was indicted by the United States’ special counsel Robert Mueller for running a ”troll factory” that interfered in the 2016 presidential election in that country.
This was Facebook's announcement:
Today, we removed 35 Facebook accounts, 53 Pages, seven Groups and five Instagram accounts that originated in Russia and focused on Madagascar, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon.
The individuals behind this activity used a combination of fake accounts and authentic accounts of local nationals in Madagascar and Mozambique to manage Pages and Groups, and post their content. They typically posted about global and local political news including topics like Russian policies in Africa, elections in Madagascar and Mozambique, election monitoring by a local non-governmental organization and criticism of French and US policies.
Facebook added that these accounts and pages spent around 77,000 USD in ads from April 2018 to October 2019.
One of the pages Facebook listed as being “inauthentic” was that of the Association for Free Research and Cooperation (AFRIC). This organization has sent a 60-person electoral observation mission to Mozambique, according to its official website.
The NGO self-describes as “a community of independent researchers, experts, and activists” and says that, in the past 14 months, it has observed electionsin Madagascar, DRC, Zimbabwe and the Republic of South Africa, as well in Mozambique.
A story from November 2019 by the Portuguese version of Radio France International says AFRIC's observatory mission in Mozambique operated “without anyone knowing very well the work of the field observers,” without citing any sources for such allegation.
Its report on the Mozambican elections praised the process as “well-organized,” but listed a number of irregularities during voting and vote counting.
The report echoes other observation missions’ conclusions. The European Union's mission identified the highest number of irregularities.
A ”fake” and illegal poll
Suspicions about Russian interference began before the elections with the publication, on October 4, of a poll conducted by an organization called the International Anticrisis Center (AIC), which gave clear victory to Frelimo.
According a story by The Guardian from May 2019 about the South African elections, the International Anticrisis Center is believed to be linked to Prigozhin. Both AIC and AFRIC attempted to influence the vote in favor of the ruling African National Congress party (ANC), The Guardian says.
Mozambican law prohibits polling during the electoral period. The opposition party Renamo reported the case to the Attorney General's office.
Nevertheless, the poll was widely disseminated on social media, including via Facebook pages that have now been deleted. Until today, the poll is available on AIC's website.
After it was published, the Center for Public Integrity (CIP), a Mozambican civil society organization, claimed that the survey could be an attempt to influence public opinion:
O mais provável é que a sondagem publicada seja mais uma fake news. Os dados são bastante suspeitos, uma vez que o Presidente Filipe Nyusi teve uma classificação alta em termos de popularidade em Nampula controlada pela oposição do que em Gaza, que é bastião da Frelimo.
Most likely, the published poll is another piece of fake news. The data is quite suspicious, as President Filipe Nyusi scored higher in popularity in opposition-controlled Nampula than in Frelimo's bastion Gaza.
Members of the Frelimo party also published the poll on different social media platforms. One of the members who had shared the survey removed it after being called to attention on Twitter by the social activist Tomás Queface:
Ehehe estou na arquibancada a acompanhar o desenrolar da conversa. O ilustre @basiliomuhate publicou uma sondagem que dá vitória de Nyusi e a Frelimo em quase todas as províncias. Mas como apercebeu-se de que estava a cometer um ilícito foi obrigado a remover o link
— Tomás Queface (@tomqueface) October 9, 2019
Ehehe I'm just watching the conversation. My friend @basiliomuhate published a poll that gives Nyusi and Frelimo victory in almost every province. But when he realized that he was committing a legal error, he was forced to remove the link
African history researcher Eric Morier-Genoud commented:
Illegal interference in the #Mozambique elections. No poll is allowed to be published during the electoral campaign. From Russia with Love… https://t.co/Ayu2aMu4Tl
— Eric Morier-Genoud (@emorier) October 10, 2019
Two days before the official election results were announced on October 30, AIC posted a tweet congratulating Filipe Nyusi and Frelimo.
Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi is re-elected with 73% of the vote. His Frelimo party will get 184 seats in Parliament. Opposition party Renamo failed to win a single province pic.twitter.com/89Un408fCn
— International Anticrisis Center (@iaccenters_en) October 28, 2019
Mozambique-Russia relations
The relations between Russia and Mozambique have warmed up in the last years.
Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi visited Moscow in August, and on that occasion Russia announced it would forgive 95 percent of the Mozambican debt, although the exact amount of this debt remains unclear. Nyusi also attended the first Russia-Africa summit in Sotchi in October.
Morier-Genoud claimed that Nyusi's trip to Russia served as a thank you for Russia's support:
@FNyusi off to #Russia to thank the government for its military help, its meddling in elections, and possibly for some loan to help struggling ENH national oil company — “из России с любовью” #Mozambiquehttps://t.co/lF1jS9bUYa
— Eric Morier-Genoud (@emorier) October 22, 2019
On October 21, the Russian Foreign Ministry congratulated Mozambique for holding elections:
Presidential, parliamentary and gubernatorial #elections were held in #Mozambique on October 15. #Moscow welcomes the success of such an important event in Mozambique’s domestic political life.
https://t.co/LfamnZp1u0 #Russia #Diplomacy #Africa #RussiaAfrica pic.twitter.com/lcPWoQ20a2
— MFA Russia
(@mfa_russia) October 21, 2019
This article is part of a series of posts examining interference with digital rights through methods such as shutdowns and disinformation during key political events in seven African countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The project is funded by the Africa Digital Rights Fund of The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA).
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