On January 9, Mozambique’s main opposition leader, Venancio Mondlane, made his return home after two months in self-imposed exile.

As he emerged at the gates of Maputo International Airport, he knelt on the ground clutching a Bible, offered a prayer for his homeland and declared himself “the president-elect of the Mozambican people, … elected by the genuine will of the people”.

Addressing reporters, he claimed the government was perpetrating a “silent genocide” by abducting and executing members of the opposition to hide obvious irregularities in the October 9 elections. What followed was a violent clash between state security forces and thousands of protesters who came to show their support for the 50-year-old Pentecostal preacher.

The chaotic scenes that day at the airport were representative of Mozambique’s grim postelection reality, defined by widespread antigovernment protests and senseless state violence.

After the elections, the Mozambique Electoral Commission (CNE) was quick to declare the Frelimo Party, which has been at the helm of the country for 50 years, and its presidential candidate, Daniel Chapo, as the rightful winners. It claimed Chapo won more than 70 percent of the votes and Mondlane, backed by the Podemos party, came second with just 20 percent.

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However, by the time the CNE announced the official results, several independent electoral missions, including the European Union Electoral Observer Mission and the Episcopal Conference of Mozambique, had already reached the conclusion that the electoral process that led to Chapo declaring victory was neither free nor fair. They reported irregularities during counting and alteration of results at both local and district levels.

Mondlane and other opposition figures immediately denounced the election results, demanded a repeat of the polls and encouraged supporters to rise up against Frelimo.

In response, the Frelimo government ordered a violent crackdown on all public expressions of dissent.

More than 300 people, including several children, have died in the violence in the past three months. Among the tragic losses are Elvino Dias, a legal representative of Mondlane, and Paulo Guambe, an official from Podemos, who were both shot dead by unknown assailants in the capital, Maputo, in October. It was after these killings that Mondlane made the decision to temporarily move abroad for his safety.

The dispute over the elections has also wreaked economic chaos in Mozambique and the wider region.

Frequent large-scale protests began to disrupt commerce while vandalism and looting became commonplace, thrusting the Southern African nation into a perpetual state of severe uncertainty, trepidation and unrest.

Vital trade routes have also been affected with South Africa’s mining sector facing daily losses of 10 million rand ($562,822) and potential shutdowns owing to the recurring closures of the Lebombo border post. Moreover, a prison riot in Maputo on Christmas Day led to the escape of 1,500 prisoners, highlighting a critical failure in law and order.

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On December 23, Mozambique’s Constitutional Council confirmed Chapo’s electoral victory, officially extending Frelimo’s 50-year tenure in office. This judgement, however, served only to escalate the fury of the protesters.

As Mozambicans lost all faith in the ability of their country’s internal mechanisms to ensure democratic governance, they started to look outside their borders for solutions to the prevailing crisis.

On January 6, a group of Mozambican civil society organisations delivered an extraordinary plea to the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, asking him to intervene to help resolve the standoff between Frelimo and the opposition.

They urged Ramaphosa to facilitate the involvement of the African Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the African Union’s Peace and Security Council to resolve the crisis.

There is no doubt that this was an unusual request.

Instead of approaching the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the regional body that should be leading any outside efforts to resolve the tensions, the Mozambican activists chose to start a bilateral engagement with South Africa, the region’s leading democracy. This demonstration of distrust in the SADC was certainly not surprising, but it further underscored the pressing necessity for the regional body to improve its performance.

A day before the petition was lodged in Pretoria, the SADC Troika responsible for matters relating to politics, defence and security – which is currently comprised of Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia – had convened a virtual summit to discuss the situation in Mozambique. At the meeting, the troika mandated the SADC Panel of Elders and a ministerial committee to engage with the Mozambican government and key leaders of the opposition.

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While this was a step in the right direction, it is important to note that it was a move that came very late and was seen by many as nothing but an attempt to save face.

Indeed, the SADC election observer mission, unlike all the others, had eagerly endorsed the October 9 polls, declaring that they were “professionally organised” and took place in an “orderly, peaceful and free atmosphere”. In the eyes of the majority of protesters, this stance had already proved the SADC cannot serve as an objective and just arbiter in this crisis.

Those in the region from Zimbabwe, eSwatini and Angola to the Democratic Republic of the Congo had long been aware of the SADC’s tendency to turn a blind eye to gross electoral malpractice and state oppression.

In fact, those in Mozambique too had learned long before these most recent elections not to expect much from the SADC when it comes to protection of democracy.

Five years ago, Mozambique’s previous Frelimo-backed president, Filipe Nyusi, had secured a second term in office after declaring victory in the 2019 elections.

The opposition and several independent electoral missions similarly maintained this poll was marred by widespread irregularities, intimidation, violence and political assassinations. The bullet-ridden body of Babula Jeque, the Renamo Women’s League leader in Zumbo, was found next to her husband’s in the western province of Tete a day before votes were cast.

Like today, the SADC did nothing much to address the problem and continued cordial relations with the Frelimo government.

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If the SADC is to maintain any credibility and cause positive change in the region, it cannot continue to interact with the Frelimo government as if everything is normal.

More significantly, if the SADC – or even the African Union – do not immediately intervene in the situation, Mozambique could be pushed into a much deeper and more violent crisis that would prove catastrophic for its more than 30 million citizens as well as the wider region.

For 16 years from May 1977 to October 1992, Mozambique experienced a devastating civil war. More recently, since 2017, the gas-rich northern province of Cabo Delgado has been entangled in a violent insurrection that has killed more than 4,000 people and displaced 946,000.

Meanwhile, the country is ranked 183 out of 189 countries on the 2023-2024 United Nations Human Development Index. With a national poverty rate of 74.7 percent, it is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world despite an abundance of natural resources.

Moreover, Mozambique is overwhelmed by systematic lawlessness.

In December 2022, Elisa Samuel Boerekamp, the general secretary of the Mozambican Judges Association, said her country had encountered “a crisis of the democratic rule of law”. This came after Frelimo enacted the Single Salary Table, a law that weakened the independence of the judges of lower courts.

Amid blatant attempts to undermine the rule of law, corruption is also rife in the country. The infamous $2bn hidden debt scandal involving Frelimo officials reportedly cost Mozambique at least $11bn, led to a substantial decrease in national healthcare expenditures, sparked a surge in insurgent activity in Cabo Delgado and pushed almost two million people into poverty.

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In this troubling context, if left to fester, the wounds opened by electoral irregularities could easily plunge the country into devastating internal conflict.

Thankfully, for now, Mondlane and his supporters persist in their belief that elections, rather than insurgency, serve as the most viable avenue for enacting change, even in the face of the many difficulties arising from Frelimo’s unscrupulous and inept administration. There is, however, no guarantee that another group will choose to follow the same strategy in the future. Given the outside world’s apparent lack of interest in helping Mozambican supporters of democracy to stand up to the oppressive Frelimo government,  the population’s frustrations and desperation for change are continuously growing.

If it is to prevent a future catastrophe in Mozambique, the SADC must get its act together now, stop appeasing the ruling party and take concrete steps to put Mozambique on the path to becoming a true democracy.

The region’s leaders must ensure that Mozambique begins to fulfil its statutory obligations as outlined in the SADC protocols.

On January 15, Chapo was sworn in as Mozambique’s new president. One of his first major acts in office was to sack police chief Bernadino Rafael who was accused by opposition figures of working with criminal groups to kidnap and kill civilian protesters in the aftermath of the elections. The new president is seemingly working to gain public trust and to make the angry masses forget and forgive the state-sanctioned violence that preceded his ascent to office.

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The people, however, will not forget. So the SADC should not forget either.

The regional body must act now and put in place provisions to prevent a repeat of the past three months in the next election cycle.

If it fails to do so, it will risk becoming thoroughly irrelevant and condemning Mozambique to being reduced to a failed state in the not so distant future.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.