Cabo Verde / Cape Verde - Politics
In a continent marked by political unrest, coups or rulers who have been in power for decades, the tiny Atlantic archipelago stands out. It ranked just behind Mauritius as the most democratic country in sub-Saharan Africa in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2020 Democracy Index.
Cabo Verde enjoys political stability and has a history of parliamentary democracy and economic freedom that is unusual in the region. Cape Verde has one of the best records in Africa in terms of good governance. Responding to growing pressure for pluralistic democracy, the Partido Africano da Independência de Cabo Verde (the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV)) called an emergency congress in February 1990 to discuss proposed constitutional changes to end one-party rule. Opposition groups came together to form the Movement for Democracy (MPD - Movimento para a Democracia ) in Praia in April 1990. Together, they campaigned for the right to contest the presidential election scheduled for December 1990. The one-party state was abolished September 28, 1990, and the first multi-party elections were held in January 1991. The MPD won a majority of the seats in the National Assembly, and MPD presidential candidate Mascarenhas Monteiro defeated the PAICVs candidate with 73.5% of the votes.
Legislative elections in December 1995 increased the MPD majority in the National Assembly. The party won 50 of the National Assemblys 72 seats. A February 1996 presidential election returned President Mascarenhas Monteiro to office.
Legislative elections in January 2001 returned power to the PAICV, with the PAICV holding 40 of the National Assembly seats, MPD 30, and Party for Democratic Convergence (PCD) and Party for Labor and Solidarity (PTS) 1 each. In February 2001, the PAICV-supported presidential candidate, Pedro Pires, defeated former MPD leader Carlos Veiga. In 2006, the PAICV won legislative elections again, and Pires was re-elected as President.
The PAICV won elections again in 2006, but the 2008 election results were close and local "camaras" were about equally divided. The municipal elections held in May, 2008 had a voter participation rate of 78 percent. The main opposition party, the MPD (Movement for Democracy), won a slight majority of the municipalities and the governing PAICV (African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde) accepted defeat.
Cape Verde held parliamentary elections in February 2011, which the Independent National Electoral Commission (NEC) judged free and fair. Three parties now hold seats in the National Assembly--PAICV 39, MPD 31, and the Democratic and Independent Cape Verdean Union (UCID) 2. A first round of presidential elections was held on August 7, 2011. The top two contenders, Jorge Carlos Fonseca of MPD and Manuel Inocencio Sousa of PAICV, received 37.4% and 32.8% of the vote, respectively. Fonseca won 54% of the vote in the August 21 runoff election and took office as President on September 9, 2011.
In the 2016 legislative elections, individuals and parties were free to declare their candidacies and candidates for a total of 72 seats. The main opposition party, Movement for Democracy (MpD), won 40 seats in the National Assembly with approximately 53 percent of the vote, returning the party to power for the first time in 15 years. The ruling party, African Party for the Independence of Cabo Verde (PAICV), won 29 seats with 37 percent, and the Union for a Democratic and Independent Cabo Verde (UCID) won the remaining three seats with 6 percent. International observers characterized these elections as generally free and fair.
The presidential election took place on October 2. Jorge Carlos Fonseca, the candidate supported by the MpD, won the election with approximately 74 percent of the vote. Election observers from the African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) characterized these elections as free, transparent, and credible. Observers noted some irregularities, however, including voters being pressured near polling stations to vote for certain candidates and allegations of vote buying.
Cape Verde’s ruling party maintained its control of the legislature after an election dominated by the coronavirus pandemic. The West African archipelago nation’s electoral commission announced formal results on 19 april 2021. Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva’s Movement for Democracy (Mpd) won 37 out of 72 seats in the national assembly, giving the party an absolute majority, according to the commission. The 58-year-old had already claimed victory tho previous evening after results showed his party had won 36 seats. The African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), a socialist party that was the MpD’s main contender, won 29 seats.
“This is a victory of justice, a fair victory for what we have done and what we have faced during these last five difficult years, with three consecutive years of drought and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Silva told the media. PAICV leader Janira Hopffer Almada, who had hoped to become the country’s first woman prime minister, conceded defeat and said she would step down as party leader.
The archipelago of 550,000 people lying around 950 kilometres (600 miles) off the coast of Senegal, Cape Verde is hailed as a bastion of democracy in Africa. In a continent marked by political unrest, coups or rulers who have been in power for decades, the tiny Atlantic archipelago stands out. It ranked just behind Mauritius as the most democratic country in sub-Saharan Africa in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2020 Democracy Index.
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