Sao Tome and \u200bPrincipe is voting in a presidential election on Sunday, with incumbent Carlos \u200cVila Nova seeking a new five-year term in the small, cocoa-producing island nation despite recently falling out with its most powerful political party.<\/p>\n
Vila Nova, a former public works and infrastructure minister, won the last election in \u200b2021 in a runoff. In that race he had the backing of the \u200bIndependent Democratic Action party, known by its Portuguese acronym ADI, which holds a \u2060majority of seats in the National Assembly.<\/p>\n
But last year Vila Nova dismissed Patrice Trovoada \u200bas prime minister, prompting a split with the ADI that has left him running as an \u200bindependent on Sunday against three other candidates.<\/p>\n
His main challenger, Nito Abreu, has vowed to focus on creating jobs for youth and stem what he describes as an exodus of young people from the country, which is \u200bmade up of two main islands and has a population of around 240,000.<\/p>\n
REPORTED COUP ATTEMPT \u200bJOLTED INCUMBENT’S FIRST TERM<\/strong><\/p>\n A former Portuguese colony situated off the western coast of Africa, Sao Tome and \u200cPrincipe has \u2060enjoyed a history of free and peaceful elections since the adoption of multiparty politics in 1990.<\/p>\n But in 2022, the government announced it had thwarted a coup attempt, the first in nearly two decades, involving at least one member of a South African apartheid-era militia known as \u200bthe Buffalo Battalion.<\/p>\n The Africa \u200bCenter for Strategic Studies, \u2060linked to the U.S. Department of Defense, said in a briefing that Sunday’s election is a chance to show such violence is “an isolated \u200baberration rather than an ongoing feature of national politics”.<\/p>\n There are 142,298 \u200beligible voters, according \u2060to the election commission. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are scheduled to close at 6 p.m., with preliminary results expected late on Sunday or on Monday.<\/p>\n A second round will be \u2060held \u200bif no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote. Legislative \u200belections are planned for September.<\/p>\n Sao Tome and Principe was once seen as a potential oil producer but the sector \u200bhas failed to produce major finds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sao Tome and \u200bPrincipe is voting in a presidential election on Sunday, with incumbent Carlos \u200cVila Nova seeking a new five-year term in the small, cocoa-producing island nation despite recently falling out with its most powerful political party. Vila Nova, a former public works and infrastructure minister, won the last election in \u200b2021 in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14779,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":7,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[3676,3675],"class_list":["post-21470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-carlos-vila-nova","tag-sao-tome-and-principe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21471,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21470\/revisions\/21471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}