São Tomé and Príncipe Political Governance and Economy

By Archie Bradley

São Tomé and Príncipe Political Governance and Economy. A Book on São Tomé and Príncipe On 7 August 2016, Evaristo 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. For the first time in the country’s 25-year democratic history the candidate of the ruling party won the elections. However, unlike earlier elections in the small archipelago for the first time the elections were marked by accusations of irregularities that culminated in the refusal of the incumbent President Manuel Pinto da Costa, the second most voted candidate, to participate in the final ballot. President Carvalho is not expected to rigorously monitor or even complicate the government’s actions, since he is widely considered a proxy of Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365720420

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São Tomé and Príncipe Political Governance and Economy

São Tomé and Príncipe Political Governance and Economy,

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Author

Archie Bradley

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ISBN: 978-1-365-72042-0

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São Tomé and Príncipe

Due to its fragility and the high incidence of the poverty, São Tome and Principe continues  to  benefit  from  substantial  external  assistance,  both  multilateral

(World Bank,  ADB,  EU,  IMF,  agencies  of  the  UN  system)  and  bilateral (Portugal, Taiwan, Brazil, Nigeria, and Angola including), as much more than

the hopes aroused by the discovery, in the 2000s, of oilfields are taking too long to materialize, resulting in a growing disappointment of the population who aspires, legitimately, to better conditions of life.

2.1   Recent developments in key social indicators

The social situation in Sao Tome and Principe remains quite worrying with regard to most of the different indicators of human development. Thus, the country was ranked on 144th place out of 187 countries, in 2014, in the category of countries with a low HDI.

The poverty Profile published in December 2012 by the UNDP and the national Institute of statistics (INE) and developed on the basis of the Survey on the living conditions of households (IOF), the most recent benchmark survey, established on 66.2% the rate of prevalence  of poverty in Sao Tome and Principe. The poverty line retained was set at a per-head spending less than approximately 30.071 STD, or approximately € 1.22, in accordance with the new approach, called absolute approach, used to measure the impact of poverty and based on the methodology of the cost of basic needs (EPC), which are vital food and non-food needs.

Poverty affects relatively more women (71.3%) than males (63.4%), and seems negatively correlated with the level of education. It is also highly correlated with the situation in employment, its prevalence being far more modest among the employed than in the inactive and the unemployed, the latter constituting the poorest socio-economic group. In employment, the workers the most vulnerable to poverty are independent agricultural private sector workers (68.4%) and non- agricultural private (67.7%), while other workers recorded poverty rates below 60% and the workers of the services and the processing sector are less exposed to poverty. The average size of poor households is 5.3 individuals, while that of non-poor households is only 3.3 people.

The analysis of inequality index shows that the poorest 20 per cent accumulate nothing more than 7.9% of the national total income while the richest 20% account for 41% of this income.

In 2010, the net participation rate was estimated at 77.3% and unemployment, although relatively not very reliable because of the preponderance of service sector - largely informal and where prevail the logic of solidarity and mutual assistance that mask underemployment and very precarious and non-decent employment -, was established at 11.1 % for those more than 15 years old. It was estimated at 23% for youth aged 15 to 24 and was significantly greater in girls (25.3%) than boys (21.4%).

According to the IOF, the net rate of school enrolment in primary education (NER) was 87.5% in 2010, with a slight advantage for boys (88.7%, compared to 86.5% for girls), whereas that of completion of this cycle was 98%. The literacy rate of individuals 15 years of age was estimated at 87.7% (93.8% of men compared to only 82.1% among women), while 93.7% of the population had a level not exceeding the primary instruction and barely 6%, a secondary or higher level of education. There was no clear discrimination between men and women, but this discrimination was very remarkable between poor and non-poor, and this discrimination is seen at all levels of education (primary, secondary, tertiary).

According to the same survey, in 2010 the morbidity rate was estimated at 19.7% at the national level (18.3% for men compared to 21.1% in women). Respiratory diseases constitute the first cause of morbidity and affected 31.6% of the total population. Malaria was the second most common disease with prevalence estimated at 10.8% at the national level. It affected much more individuals from poor households (21.1%), than those from non-poor households (15.4%).

The maternal mortality rate was 76% per hundred thousand live births, while infant mortality was 38 thousand in 2014.

Health consultation rate of 85.6% in 2010, and the IOF have concluded that "total health  coverage  in  the  country  seems  to  be  globally  good  and  meets  the expectation of people based on the estimated rates of satisfaction.

According to the data available in 2014, 94% of the population had access to drinking water, among them 70% by connection to the water supply, and 42% to hygienic sanitation. 

The  rate  of  households  connected  to  the  public  electricity network is about 60%, the same year.

President Election Vote, An experience that came and passed

Initial election results indicated that Evaristo Carvalho, candidate of the ruling ADI party, won the presidential election held on 17 July. Carvalho defeated incumbent President Pinto da Costa. Yet, on 22 July, the Election Commission (CEN) cancelled the election results. The Constitutional Court has recently decided that a second round of voting will take place on 7 August.

According to provisional data, Carvalho won 50.1% (34,629) of the votes, incumbent President Manuel Pinto da Costa who ran as an independent garnered 24.8% (17.121), and Maria das Neves of the Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe/Social Democratic Party (MSTP-PSD) managed to win 24.1% (16,638). Two other candidates, Hélder Barros and Manuel do Rosário, won 0.3% (194) and 0.7% (488) of the votes respectively. Roughly 70,000 people voted and the abstention rate was .91%.[1] President Pinto da Costa and Maria das Neves contested the election results before the country’s Constitutional Court.

In São Tomé and Príncipe the presidential term is five years, and is limited to two consecutive terms. The electoral system for presidential elections is based on the majority principle where the winning candidate is required to obtain an absolute majority (a minimum of 50% plus one vote) of the votes. A second election is organised if none of the candidates receives an absolute majority. In the second round, only the two top candidates are allowed to contest.

The CEN cancelled the election results because of changes in the provisional results affected by vote counts from the diaspora (Portugal, Angola, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea) and because voting had been