São Tomé e Principe - Politics
Politics is dominated by a small number of leading families. Miguel Trovoada and Pinto da Costa had been close personal friends since their childhood, however, in the first years after independence, when the former was Prime Minister and the latter was President, the struggle for power between the two men culminated in the detention of Trovoada without charge or trial from 1979 to 1981. Patrice Trovoada inherited the leadership of the political party and the rivalry with Manuel Pinto da Costa, the country’s President during the socialist one-party regime (1975-1990).
STP is a competitive multiparty democracy; enduring political consensus cannot be taken for granted, and transfers of power are a natural part of the political process. Executive power is constitutionally divided between President and Prime Minister. This has proved to be an unstable balance. Since 2001, there have been at least eight changes of government. The Army has also played a destabilising role from time to time, most recently in July 2003 when President Obasanjo of Nigeria played a key role in restoring calm. STP is a vibrant democracy where politicians and the public have a history of accepting government changes resulting from elections. STP is relatively stable, has few ethnic tensions, and has a relaxed lifestyle which locals refer to in Portuguese as leve–leve (take it easy). Political violence is rare, as a high premium is placed on consensus in decision-making.
In 1990, Sao Tome became one of the first African states to embrace democratic reform. Changes to the constitution, including the legalization of opposition political parties, led to nonviolent, free, and transparent elections in 1991. Miguel Trovoada, the country’s first Prime Minister who had been in exile since 1986, returned as an independent candidate and was elected president. The Party of Democratic Convergence (PCD) beat the MLSTP to take a majority of seats in the National Assembly, with the MLSTP becoming an important and vocal minority party. Municipal elections followed in late 1992 in which the MLSTP came back to win a majority of seats on five of seven regional councils. The MLSTP followed this victory by winning a plurality of seats in the Assembly in early legislative elections held in October 1994. It regained an outright majority of seats in the November 1998 elections. Meanwhile, Trovoada formed his own party, the Independent Democratic Action Party (ADI), and was re-elected president in the second multiparty presidential election in 1996.
The next presidential elections were held in July 2001. The candidate backed by the ADI, Fradique de Menezes, was elected in the first round. Parliamentary elections held in March 2002 led to a coalition government after no party gained a majority of seats. An attempted coup d'etat in July 2003 by a few members of the military and the Christian Democratic Front (mostly representative of former Sao Tomean volunteers from the apartheid-era Republic of South African Army) was reversed by international mediation without bloodshed. In September 2004, President Menezes dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed a new cabinet, a move which was accepted by the majority party. In June 2005, following public discontent with oil exploration licenses granted in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Nigeria, the MLSTP, the majority party, and its coalition partners threatened to resign from government and force early parliamentary elections. After several days of negotiations, the President and the MLSTP agreed to form a new government and thus avoid early elections.
The March 2006 legislative elections were held without problems. President Menezes' party, the Movement for the Democratic Force of Change (MDFM), in coalition with PCD, won 23 seats and took an unexpected lead ahead of the MLSTP. The MLSTP came in second with 20 seats, the ADI came in third with 11 seats, and the movement “Novo Rumo” gained one seat.
Sao Tome and Principe held its fourth democratic, multiparty presidential elections on July 30, 2006. Local and international observers described the elections as being free and fair. Incumbent President Menezes won the election with approximately 60% of the vote. Voter turnout was relatively high with 63% of the 91,000 registered voters casting ballots.
In November 2007 Prime Minister Tome Vera Cruz threatened to resign, and several ministers in his government were replaced following significant public criticism of souring economic conditions and the government's handling of recurring mutinies by dissident police officers. The changes took place peacefully and without incident. During another government shakeup in February 2008, President Menezes appointed Patrice Trovoada as prime minister.
On May 20, 2008 the government collapsed after losing a parliamentary vote of confidence. The opposition Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe-Social Democratic Party (MLSTP-PSD), with the support of PCD, asserted that Prime Minister Trovoada had failed to deliver on reforms that he promised when he entered office. Joaquim Rafael Branco became Prime Minister in June 2008.
On December 19, 2009 President Menezes was elected to lead the MDFM party. His election was challenged both within the party and by constitutional experts as unconstitutional. Constitutionalists argued that according to the country’s semi-presidential constitution, the president could not exercise any other public or private function, including the post of party leader. The two coalition partners of the MDFM, MLSTP-PSD and PCD, criticized the election and announced an appeal to the constitutional court.
In response to the MLSTP appeal, Menezes withdrew the three MDFM ministers from the coalition (Menezes directly controlled those particular ministers). However, two of the ministers, Justino Veiga and Cristina Dias, declared that they would continue in the government. This was impeded by Menezes, who vetoed Prime Minister Branco’s (MLSTP) intention to keep the two ministers in a reshuffled cabinet. Unexpectedly, 2 days later, Menezes resigned the MDFM leadership, but denied that his decision had been influenced by any outside pressures.
Legislative elections were held on August 1, 2010, and were deemed free and fair by international observers. Patrice Trovoada's ADI party won 26 of the 55 National Assembly seats, just two seats shy of a majority. The MLSTP-PSD party won 21 seats, the PCD 7, and President Menezes' MDFM party only one seat. A new government was formed on August 14, with Trovoada again appointed Prime Minister. On July 17, 2011 the country's fifth democratic and multiparty presidential elections were held, with a runoff on August 7, 2011. Former president Manuel Pinto da Costa was elected in a narrow victory over the Speaker of Parliament, Evaristo Carvalho. Incumbent President Menezes, having served two terms, was constitutionally precluded from seeking a third term. President da Costa took office in September 2011.
In 2012, a parliamentary shake-up led to confusion regarding who legitimately held power, but there was no violence. On 19 October 2012, the three opposition parties held an anti-government demonstration that mobilized 5,000 people, according to the organizers. The organizers again accused the Trovoada government of a lack of transparency in government dealings, political harassment of members of the oppo- sition and political manipulation of the local media. The council of ministers accused the opposition of ignoring the simple democratic principle that “who wins rules”, and instead was attempting to impose the principle “the country must be ruled by an association of loser parties”.
In November 2012, Patrice Trovoada, who had won the 2010 elections with 43.1% of the vote, was removed from office by a motion of non-confidence supported by the opposition parties MLSTP/PCD, PCD and MDFM that formed a new government. In December 2012 the president appointed Gabriel Arcanjo Ferreira da Costa as prime minister to replace Patrice Emery Trovoada, who was removed from office following a November 2012 censure motion approved by a minority coalition in the National Assembly acting while Trovoada’s party was absent. Trovoada and his party, which won the most parliamentary seats in 2010 legislative elections, subsequently contested the censure motion and described his removal as “illegal.”
The country held legislative elections in October 2014. The Independent Democratic Action (ADI) party of Prime Minister Trovoada increased its representation from 26 to 33 of the 55 seats in the National Assembly, and its leader, Patrice Emery Trovoada, became the prime minister. The Liberation Movement of Sao Tome and Principe/Social Democratic Party won 16 seats, the Democratic Convergence Party won five seats, and the Democratic Union for Development for the first time was able to win one seat. In 2011 citizens elected Manuel Pinto da Costa as president with more than 52 percent of the vote in the second of two rounds of voting. International observers deemed the 2014 legislative elections generally free and fair.
In the first round of voting int he Presidential election on July 17, Evaristo Carvalho led with 49.88 percent of the vote to incumbent Pinto da Costa's 24.83 percent. On 7 August 2016, Carvalho, candidate of the ruling Acção Democrática Independente (ADI) was elected president of São Tomé and Príncipe, Africa’s second smallest country and one of the very few African states with a semi-presidential system. Manuel Pinto da Costa dropped out of the race citing voting irregularities in the first round. Only 46 percent of voters voted and of those 18 percent turned in blank or invalid ballots. For the first time in the country’s 25-year democratic history the candidate of the ruling party won the elections. President Carvalho is widely considered a proxy for Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada. In the previous five presidential elections the electorate had preferred the cohabitation between the two office holders
Sao Tome and Principe has made great strides toward developing its democratic institutions and further guaranteeing the civil and human rights of its citizens. Sao Tomeans have freely changed their government through peaceful and transparent elections on several occasions. While there have been disagreements and political conflicts within the branches of government and the National Assembly, the debates have been carried out and resolved in an open, democratic, and legal manner, in accordance with the provisions of Sao Tomean law. A number of political parties actively participate in government and openly express their views. Overall, the government's respect for human rights is strong. Freedom of the press is respected, and there are several independent newspapers in addition to the government bulletin. Further, the government does not engage in repressive measures against its citizens, and respect for individuals' rights to due process and protection from government abuses is widely honored. Freedom of expression is accepted, and the government has taken no repressive measures to silence critics.
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