Mozambique

Mozambique’s state media landscape is dominated by State-Controlled (SC) outlets with one Captured Public/State-Managed (CaPu) case. The four outlets profiled in 2026, TVM (national public television), RM (national public radio), AIM (national state news agency, added to the dataset in this update cycle), and Sociedade do Notícias (state-managed publisher of the daily Notícias and the weeklies Domingo and Desafio), collectively cover television, radio, news-agency services, and print/digital publishing. TVM and RM operate as Empresas Públicas under decrees from the early 1990s; AIM is constituted as a State institution with legal personality and administrative autonomy under Portaria 119/75 of 22 November 1975; Sociedade do Notícias is a commercial Sociedade Anónima with the State as the largest shareholder. All four exhibit the same structural features: executive-appointed leadership, public/state-linked financing, and no statutory protection of editorial independence beyond general clauses that lack enforceable mechanisms.

The 2024–2026 period has been institutionally consequential without altering this picture. The contested 9 October 2024 general election (Mozambique’s seventh multi-party general election, after 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019) returned FRELIMO candidate Daniel Chapo as President with 65.17% of the vote per the Constitutional Council, and the post-election crisis through January 2025 produced around 315 deaths and more than 3,000 injuries between 21 October 2024 and 16 January 2025 per Plataforma DECIDE figures cited by Amnesty International. President Chapo was inaugurated on 15 January 2025; Maria Benvinda Levi, former Justice Minister, was appointed Prime Minister; Presidential Decree No. 1/2025 of 16 January 2025 created the new Ministry of Communications and Digital Transformation (MCTD) under Cabinet Minister Américo Muchanga, while GABINFO continues to exercise direct supervisory authority at least over AIM and remains publicly active.

Three of the four outlets received new chief executives within a four-month window: Victor Filipe Sinai Nhatitima at TVM (Council of Ministers, 2 December 2025), Mário Mito Albino at RM (sworn in by Prime Minister Levi, 9 March 2026), and Orlando Gambeta at AIM (sworn in by GABINFO Director Emília Moiane, 4 March 2026); Notícias separately marked its centenary in April 2026. The European Union Election Observation Mission’s monitoring of the 2024 campaign provided the period’s clearest empirical anchor: TVM news allocated 44% of airtime to FRELIMO; RM allocated 48% of presidential-candidate news airtime to Daniel Chapo and 11% to Venâncio Mondlane; Notícias allocated 54% of presidential-candidate coverage to Chapo and 14% to Mondlane.

Reporters Without Borders ranked Mozambique 99 out of 180 in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, an improvement of two places from 101 in 2025. RSF describes the broader Mozambican media landscape as one in which “a significant number of media outlets are directly or indirectly controlled by the authorities or members of FRELIMO, the ruling party which has reigned for 50 years.” The 2024–25 post-election period was also defined by attacks on journalists, arbitrary arrests, and internet restrictions documented by Amnesty International. Independent and critical journalism continues to operate primarily through private outlets (Carta de Moçambique, Savana, Canal de Moçambique), with the broader information environment further constrained by Mozambique’s continuing low internet penetration (~19.8% at end of 2025 per DataReportal) and the structural dominance of the four state-affiliated outlets profiled here.

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