A consolidação da democracia no contexto da descentralização administrativa em Moçambique: caso do Município de Marromeu (1998-2005)

Abstract

The creation of local authorities, an indirect form of state administration, has as its final objective, among several, the consolidation of the process of building the Democratic Mozambican State through the participation of civil society and citizens in the management of public affairs, based on the assumption that there are very strong incentives for participation at the local level because their consequences are more visible and immediate. The participation of civil society and citizens in the management of public affairs at the local level, means that there is a possibility that municipal bodies are composed of various sensitivities, that is, the possibility of aggregating various interests existing in local authorities. This reality sparked interest in our theme: The Consolidation of Democracy in Mozambique in the Context of Administrative Decentralization — The case of the Municipality of Marromeu (1998-2005). In this study, the central objective is to analyze the extent to which local authorities contribute to democratic consolidation at the local level in the context of administrative decentralization. Taking the systemic approach as our theoretical perspective, the results of the fieldwork corroborate our study hypothesis, according to which, in Marromeu, the occurrence of political cohabitation is more potent and bias for the consolidation of democracy than the validity of “ single party ”in the first experience of municipalities in Mozambique.