(São Tomé) The inhabitants of Sao Tomé and Principe voted on Sunday in the legislative elections and could see the center-left coalition in power cede its fragile majority to the center-right, in this small, very poor Portuguese-speaking archipelago, considered a model. parliamentary democracy in Africa.
Updated yesterday at 3:42 p.m.
The polling stations closed in the evening and the counting began in the archipelago of 215,000 inhabitants, where 100,000 voters were called to renew the 55 deputies of the National Assembly for four years, at the same time as the regional elected officials and municipal.
The National Electoral Commission (CNE) did not give details on the publication of the results.
Long queues had formed as soon as the polling stations opened, particularly in Lemba, in the west of the island of Sao Tome, noted an AFP journalist.
“There are long queues at some polling stations, […] which indicates that the citizens of Sao Tome and Principe are voting in large numbers”, assured in the afternoon Maria Manuel Leitão Marques, MEP, head of the European Union electoral observation mission .
The ballot took place without major incident at midday even if it was peppered with “a boycott of the vote in an area” of the capital, in Bairro de Hospital, in the northeast of the archipelago, where voters blocked the entrance to a polling station, demanding better access to drinking water, the CNE said.
“We are convinced of a victory,” centre-left prime minister Jorge Bom Jesus (MLSTP) told local media, adding that he would await the results at party headquarters.
The center-right president, Carlos Vila Nova (ADI), invited the Santomeans to move, because “the next four years will depend on each one”.
Two major parties have been vying for the leadership of the country since its independence from Portugal in 1975: the Democratic Independent Action (ADI, centre-right) and the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe—Social Democratic Party (MLSTP-PSD , center left), in power.
In 2021, the Santomeans had elected Carlos Vila Nova, but the executive is exercised mainly by the Prime Minister, Jorge Lopes Bom Jesus, since the victory of a coalition of left-wing parties in the legislative elections of 2018.
If the left and center parties had managed to come together in 2018 to beat the ADI of Patrice Trovoada, former Prime Minister (2010-2012 and 2014-2018), they are disunited in this election.
A majority of the ADI and its allies would end cohabitation at the top of the state. Even if the president exercises only an honorary function, he can play the role of arbiter in the event of a very short majority of one coalition or the other.
alternations
The bet is all the more difficult since with a majority of only one seat (28) in 2018 thanks to the support of a wing of the Democratic Convergence Party (PCD), the MLSTP of Mr. Lopes Bom Jesus does not can no longer count on this movement on Sunday, the PCD having distanced itself from it.
PHOTO STR, AGENCY FRANCE-PRESSE
A man exercises his right to vote in Lemba district, Sao Tome.
The popularity of the head of government declined over the course of his term. The one who said he wanted to “fight against corruption” during his inauguration has faced corruption charges against his party since.
Patrice Trovoada, he returned to the country in mid-September after an exile in Portugal since his defeat in 2018. He is the favorite of the opposition.
After 15 years of a one-party Marxist regime, Sao Tome and Principe opened up to a multi-party system in 1991.
International aid
This small Central African archipelago is approximately 90% dependent on international aid for its infrastructure investments and its imports of finished products.
Its main, relatively low, own income comes from cocoa and coffee exports, and tourism.
The unemployment rate was 15.9% in 2021, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), probably much higher in fact, and two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
The archipelago was listed at 135e world rank out of some 190 countries in the 2021 UN ranking for the Human Development Index (HDI).