The Quality of Democracy: An Analysis of the Mozambican Legislature Capacity and Responsiveness

This study explores the quality of democracy by examining legislative capacity and performance in Mozambican case. The study finds very poor legislative capacity vis-à-vis executive and president. The entire state authority is concentrated in the president who is both head of state and of government. The president can dissolve the parliament if it censures the government program and the parliament can not hold the head of government accountable. It also find that even though the Mozambican legislature has formal structures to deal with issues of national interests, in practice, some of them are far away to be effective and to contribute for democracy. Regarding to legislative resources, I find that the Assembly of the Republic has very little financial and infrastructural resources in sense that there is no extension of parliament structure at provincial level, very few MPs are skilled and the skilled parliament staff in the committees and plenary are not being taken in advantage. Regarding to legislative performance, while public opinion perceive that MPs are far away from representing their communities and citizens in constituencies, they are more likely to perform well. However, the study found very low levels of democracy in Mozambique.