Sao Tome and Principe

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Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe

Capital Sao Tome
Government Republic
Language Portuguese (official)
President Manuel Pinto da Costa
Prime minister Patrice Emery Trovoada
Area 386 sq mi
Population 2010 167,000
GDP 2009 $191 million
GDP per capita $1,174
Currency Dobra


The islands of Sao Tome and Principe are situated in the equatorial Atlantic about 200 miles and 150 miles (320 and 240 kilometers), respectively, off the northwest coast of Gabon. Both are part of an extinct volcanic mountain range that extends to the north where it also includes the island of Bioko off Equatorial Guinea and Mount Cameroon on the Cameroon coast. The island of Sao Tome is 31 miles (50 km) long and 20 miles (32 km) wide and is the more mountainous of the two islands. Its highest peak reaches 6,640 feet (2,024 m). Principe is about 19 miles (30 kilometers) long and 4 miles (6 km) wide. Swift streams run down the mountains through lush forest and cropland to the sea on both islands.

At sea level, the climate is tropical--hot and humid with average yearly temperatures around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) and little daily variation. At the interior's higher altitudes, the average yearly temperature falls to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), and nights are generally cooler. Annual rainfall varies from 200 inches (500 centimeters) on the southwestern slopes to 40 inches (100 centimeters) in the northern lowlands. The rainy season runs from October to May.


Roughly 160,000 people live on Sao Tome and about 6,000 on Principe. All are descended from various ethnic groups that have migrated to the islands since 1485. Six groups are identifiable:

  • Mestico, or mixed-blood, descendants of African slaves brought to the islands during the early years of settlement from Benin, Gabon, and Congo and Europeans (these people also are known as filhos da terra or "sons of the land");
  • Forros, descendants of freed slaves when slavery was abolished;
  • Tongas, children of servicais with forros born on the islands; and
  • Europeans, primarily Portuguese.







Principal Government Officials

Political Conditions


Foreign Relations

The Organization for African Unity recognized the MLSTP in 1972, yet until independence in 1975, Sao Tome and Principe had few ties abroad except those that passed through Portugal. Following independence, the new government sought to expand its diplomatic relationships. A common language, tradition, and colonial experience have led to close collaboration between Sao Tome and other ex-Portuguese colonies in Africa, particularly Angola. Sao Tomean relations with other African countries in the region, such as Gabon and the Republic of the Congo, are good also. In December 2000, Sao Tome signed the African Union treaty, which the National Assembly later ratified.

The Sao Tomean Government has generally maintained a foreign policy based on nonalignment and cooperation with any country willing to assist in its economic development. In recent years, it also has increasingly emphasized ties to the United States and Western Europe.

Sao Tome maintains formal relations with Taiwan.











Portuguese navigators first discovered the uninhabited islands between 1469 and 1472. The first successful settlement on Sao Tome was established in 1493 by Alvaro Caminha, who had received the land as a grant from the Portuguese crown. Seven years later in 1500, Principe was settled under a similar arrangement. These grants ended when the Portuguese crown fully took over Sao Tome in 1522 and Principe in 1573. By mid-century, less than 100 years after discovering it, the Portuguese had turned the islands into Africa's foremost exporter of sugar with the help of slave labor from the African coast. However, sugar cultivation declined over the next 100 years, and by the mid-1600s, Sao Tome was little more than a port of call to refuel ships.

This situation lasted for roughly 150 years until in the early 1800s when two new cash crops, coffee and cocoa, were introduced. The rich volcanic soils proved well suited to the new cash crop industry. By 1908, Sao Tome had become the world's largest producer of cocoa. Extensive plantations (rocas), owned by Portuguese companies or absentee landlords, cultivated most of the good farmland.

The rocas system, which gave the plantation managers a high degree of authority, led to abuses against the African farm workers. Although Portugal officially abolished slavery in 1876, the practice of forced paid labor continued. In the early 1900s, an internationally publicized controversy arose over charges that Angolan contract workers were being subjected to forced labor and unsatisfactory working conditions. Sporadic labor unrest and dissatisfaction continued until they culminated in an outbreak of riots in 1953 in which several hundred African laborers were killed in a clash with the Portuguese. This "Batepa Massacre" remains a major event in the colonial history of the islands, and the government officially observes its anniversary on February 3. Although the Portuguese crushed the riots, an independence movement emerged in the aftermath.

By the late 1950s, a small group of Sao Tomeans formed the Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe (MLSTP). Unable to remain on the islands, they eventually established a base in nearby Gabon. Although the independence movement grew stronger in the 1960s, events accelerated rapidly after the overthrow of the Salazar and Caetano dictatorship in Portugal in April 1974. The new Portuguese regime was committed to the dissolution of its overseas colonies and in November 1974, their representatives met with the MLSTP in Algiers. There, the two sides worked out an agreement for the transfer of sovereignty. The movement toward independence precipitated an exodus of most of the 4,000 Portuguese residents in the 1970s. After a period of transitional government, Sao Tome and Principe achieved independence on July 12, 1975, and chose as its first President the MLSTP Secretary General, Manuel Pinto da Costa. He established a one-party state and served as President until 1990.

In 1990, Sao Tome became one of the first African states to embrace democratic reform. Changes to the constitution, including the legalization of opposition political parties, led to nonviolent, free, and transparent elections in 1991. Miguel Trovoada, the country’s first Prime Minister who had been in exile since 1986, returned as an independent candidate and was elected President. The Party of Democratic Convergence (PCD) beat the MLSTP to take a majority of seats in the National Assembly, with the MLSTP becoming an important and vocal minority party. Municipal elections followed in late 1992 in which the MLSTP came back to win a majority of seats on five of seven regional councils. The MLSTP followed this victory by winning a plurality of seats in the Assembly in early legislative elections held in October 1994. It regained an outright majority of seats in the November 1998 elections. Meanwhile, Trovoada formed his own party, the Independent Democratic Action Party (ADI), and was re-elected President in the second multiparty presidential election in 1996.

The next presidential elections were held in July 2001. The candidate backed by the ADI, Fradique de Menezes, was elected in the first round. Parliamentary elections held in March 2002 led to a coalition government after no party gained a majority of seats. An attempted coup d'etat in July 2003 by a few members of the military and the Christian Democratic Front (mostly representative of former Sao Tomean volunteers from the apartheid-era Republic of South African Army) was reversed by international mediation without bloodshed. In September 2004, President Menezes dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed a new cabinet, a move which was accepted by the majority party. In June 2005, following public discontent with oil exploration licenses granted in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) with Nigeria, the MLSTP, the majority party, and its coalition partners threatened to resign from government and force early parliamentary elections. After several days of negotiations, the President and the MLSTP agreed to form a new government and thus avoid early elections.

The March 2006 legislative elections were held without problems. President Menezes' party, the Movement for the Democratic Force of Change (MDFM), in coalition with PCD, won 23 seats and took an unexpected lead ahead of the MLSTP. The MLSTP came in second with 20 seats, the ADI came in third with 11 seats, and the movement “Novo Rumo” gained one seat.

Sao Tome and Principe held its fourth democratic, multiparty presidential elections on July 30, 2006. Local and international observers described the elections as being free and fair. Incumbent President Menezes won the election with approximately 60% of the vote. Voter turnout was relatively high with 63% of the 91,000 registered voters casting ballots.

In November 2007 Prime Minister Tome Vera Cruz threatened to resign, and several ministers in his government were replaced following significant public criticism of souring economic conditions and the government's handling of recurring mutinies by dissident police officers. The changes took place peacefully and without incident. During another government shakeup in February 2008, President Menezes appointed Patrice Trovoada as Prime Minister.

On May 20, 2008 the government collapsed after losing a parliamentary vote of confidence. The opposition Movement for the Liberation of Sao Tome and Principe-Social Democratic Party (MLSTP-PSD), with the support of PCD, asserted that Prime Minister Trovoada had failed to deliver on reforms that he promised when he entered office. Joaquim Rafael Branco became Prime Minister in June 2008.

On December 19, 2009 President Menezes was elected to lead the MDFM party. His election was challenged both within the party and by constitutional experts as unconstitutional. Constitutionalists argued that according to the country’s semi-presidential constitution, the president could not exercise any other public or private function, including the post of party leader. The two coalition partners of the MDFM, MLSTP-PSD and PCD, criticized the election and announced an appeal to the constitutional court.

In response to the MLSTP appeal, Menezes withdrew the three MDFM ministers from the coalition (Menezes directly controlled those particular ministers). However, two of the ministers, Justino Veiga and Cristina Dias, declared that they would continue in the government. This was impeded by Menezes, who vetoed Prime Minister Branco’s (MLSTP) intention to keep the two ministers in a reshuffled cabinet. Unexpectedly, 2 days later, Menezes resigned the MDFM leadership, but denied that his decision had been influenced by any outside pressures.

Legislative elections were held on August 1, 2010, and were deemed free and fair by international observers. Patrice Trovoada's ADI party won 26 of the 55 National Assembly seats, just two seats shy of a majority. The MLSTP-PSD party won 21 seats, the PCD 7, and President Menezes' MDFM party only one seat. A new government was formed on August 14, with Trovoada again appointed Prime Minister. On July 17, 2011 the country's fifth democratic and multiparty presidential elections were held, with a runoff on August 7, 2011. Former president Manuel Pinto da Costa was elected in a narrow victory over the Speaker of Parliament, Evaristo Carvalho. Incumbent President Menezes, having served two terms, was constitutionally precluded from seeking a third term. President da Costa took office in September 2011.


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