By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Sao Tome and Principe’s national electoral commission on Monday announced President Carlos Vila Nova winner of the presidential polls, handing him a second term of five years.
Preliminary results released on Monday indicate that Vila Nova, a former public works and infrastructure minister, won Sunday’s election with more than 55% of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff, the commission said at a press conference.
His top challenger, Nito Abreu, also secured over 41% of the vote.
Vila Nova came to power in 2021 with the backing of the Independent Democratic Action party (ADI), which holds a majority of seats in the National Assembly.
But last year, he sacked the influential Prime Minister, Patrice Trovoada, prompting a split within the ADI that left him running as an independent candidate on Sunday against three others.
During the campaigns, the main challenger, Abreu had vowed to focus on creating jobs for youth and stemming what he describes as an exodus of young people from the country, which is made up of two main islands and has a population of around 240,000.
A former Portuguese colony situated off the western coast of Africa, Sao Tome and Principe has built a reputation of free and peaceful elections since the adoption of multiparty politics in 1990.
The country produces cocoa, and was once seen as a potential oil producer, though it has not yielded major income.
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 the Buffalo Battalion.
