São Tomé and Príncipe: in the third attempt and after twenty years, a former autocrat returns to the presidency

Abstract

On August 7th, in the run-off for the presidential elections, seventy-five years old Manuel Pinto da Costa, the country’s first post-independence President, defeated candidate for the ruling Independent Democratic Action (ADI) Evaristo Carvalho (sixty-nine years old), with 52.9% of the votes against 47.1%. Pinto da Costa has become one of several formear African authoritarian rulers who, after departure from power, came back to the presidential palace several years later through the ballot box. Like Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Pinto da Costa returned to the presidency after a lean period of twenty years becoming his country’s third democratically elected President, succeeding Miguel Trovoada (1991- 2001) and Fradique de Menezes (2001-2011).