A failed presidential candidate in Sao Tome and Principe, Africa’s second smallest nation, has challenged the outcome of a weekend vote which produced a surprise winner and strengthened the hand of the prime minister. The ruling party candidate and former prime minister Evaristo Carvalho won Sunday’s first round, scraping just past the required 50-percent mark needed for an outright win. The 78-year-old incumbent President Manuel Pinto da Costa, who was seeking a third term as an independent, polled 24 percent.
Around 110,000 citizens of the twin archipelagos located 300 kilometres (190 miles) off the coast of Gabon were eligible to take part in the election.
Executive power in Sao Tome and Principe is shared between the president and the prime minister and has led to turf wars in the past.
But this victory means the Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada will govern with a president from his own party, the Independent Democratic Action (ADI), which won the parliamentary elections in 2014.
Full Article: Sao Tome’s incumbent president loses election | GlobalPost.
