MAPUTO, Dec 21 (AFP) - Armando Guebuza, one of Mozambique's richest businessmen and a stalwart of the ruling party and in the country's fight against Portuguese colonial rule, crowned his political career Tuesday by being elected president in key polls.
Guebuza, who inflicted a crushing defeat on main opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama in polls to elect a successor to President Joaquim Chissano, who is calling its quits after 18 years in power, faces a boycott by his rival who has refused to accept the results.
The 61-year-old Guebuza on Tuesday hailed the results as a "victory for the Mozambican people," and proferred an olive branch to Dhlakama, saying: "Only united we can overcome poverty and all the other difficulties our country is facing today."
Guebuza is no stranger to controversy.
Earlier in his career he led an unpopular resettlement program that saw thousands of jobless people -- officially called "unproductive" -- evicted from the country's two main cities to the economically backward north. The programme was slammed as repressive and a costly failure.
"Mr Gue-business," as he is now known, was born in the northern province of Nampula and joined the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) rebel movement at the age of 20 to fight Portuguese colonial rule.
In just two years he climbed up through the ranks of the group's central and executive committees and underwent military training in Tanzania, rapidly achieving the rank of general and using his military skills to fight bush wars.
After Mozambique won independence from Portugal in 1975, Guebuza sent Portuguese settlers packing, issuing the now infamous "20-24 order" as interior minister that gave them just 24 hours to leave with 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of luggage.
He spearheaded an unpopular programme in 1983 called "Operation Production" to move thousands from the two main cities of Maputo and Beira to the impoverished north.
It started at the height of winter and people often travelled with just the clothes on their backs while war raged and the country teetered on the brink of famine.
After founding president Samora Machel died in a plane crash over South Africa in 1986, Guebuza headed a committee investigating the deaths of 35 people, including the president, but it made no headway due to lack of cooperation from Pretoria's then-apartheid regime.
When Machel's successor Joaquim Chissano decided to abandon his predecessor's socialist economic policy, Guebuza made his first foray into business. Since then he has built an empire that includes fishing, the media, construction and exports.
He was also one of the leading beneficiaries of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Chissano appointed Guebuza to lead the ruling FRELIMO's negotiating team at peace talks in Rome with the rebel Mozambique National Resistance (RENAMO), now the main opposition party.
Those talks led to a peace accord in 1992 that ended 16 years of war that claimed up to one million lives and left Mozambique's economy in ruin.
After a lengthy and tense nomination process, ruling party bigwigs elected Guebuza in June 2002 as their presidential candidate for the upcoming elections in what was, for many, a surprise move.
In a recent interview to AFP, Guebuza said peace was now firmly rooted in Mozambique and the main challenge was to attract more investment and speed up economic growth to fight poverty and create jobs.
He pledged to attract "as much investment as possible no matter where it comes from" and achieve a two-digit growth rate from the present level of seven percent and "reduce the levels or impact of (the) two evils" of red tape and corruption, which were impeding foreign investment.
Guebuza is married and has five children.
12/21/2004 16:39 GMT - AFP