Do we like them?

Do we like Daniel Chapo?

Our score: 3 out of 10. Nothing found against LGBTQ+ people, but a threat to “shed blood” over protests that left hundreds dead, a contested election and thin verified good keep him low.

Daniel Chapo is the fifth president of Mozambique and the first Frelimo leader who wasn't a guerrilla fighter. He was born in Inhaminga during the civil war, trained as a lawyer, and governed Inhambane province from 2016 to 2024 before the party plucked him out of relative obscurity as its candidate.

The way he got the job is the first stain. The electoral commission announced he'd won with more than 70 per cent, then the Constitutional Council trimmed it to about 65 per cent in December 2024, admitting irregularities but saying they didn't change the result. Opposition figures and observers accused the count of fraud, and Frelimo has denied that. Hundreds of people died in the protests that followed.

The ugliest bit is what he said in the middle of it. On 24 February 2025 Chapo called the protests a security threat comparable to the Cabo Delgado insurgency and pledged to “shed blood” to stop them, and rights groups condemned that. Amnesty International accused police and the military of using “reckless and unnecessary” force, and a Mozambican monitoring group counted 388 people killed between October 2024 and January 2025.

On the harm test, we found no words from him against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, and nothing on the climate either way. The mark is the protest rhetoric and what his forces did under it. In Cabo Delgado, he denied reports of abuses by security forces near the TotalEnergies gas site, saying the claims “are not true” and calling them disinformation, while saying prosecutors were investigating. His government has also backed the restart of that gas project.

He isn't all hard line. In March 2025 he sat down with Mondlane, who said they agreed to end the unrest, give victims support, compensate families of the dead and offer amnesty to people arrested. Months later he told Al Jazeera that peace in Mozambique has always come through talking. Mondlane later complained the deal wasn't honoured, and Chapo said there was no signed agreement, so how much of that sticks is open.

On the good-person side there's a small, messy episode too. In June 2025 an anti-corruption group, the Centre for Public Integrity, accused him of breaching the probity law by accepting “millionaire offers” of produce and livestock on a provincial visit. He said he'd donate the goods to disadvantaged people and soldiers in Cabo Delgado. It's a minor thing, and the group said donating them didn't cancel the alleged breach.