Cape Verde: the ruling party remains in the majority

The center-right party in power for five years in Cape Verde remains in the majority in the National Assembly after the legislative elections of April 18, the full results of which were published on Wednesday by the electoral commission.

Read also: Cape Verde: the outgoing Prime Minister claims victory in the legislative elections

Outgoing Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva's Movement for Democracy (MpD) won 38 of the 72 seats in Parliament, against 40 in the outgoing assembly, according to results covering all the offices put in place. line by the National Election Commission (CNE). The MpD won one of the two seats allocated to the diaspora, the results of which were overdue for more than a week. The other seat that remained to be filled went to the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV, socialist) of ex-minister Janira Hopffer Almada, finally credited with 30 seats, one more than 2016.

Janira Hopffer Almada, 42, who hoped to become the first woman to lead the government of the former Portuguese colony, admitted on election night her defeat and announced her next resignation as head of her party, of which she had become the first woman to assume the presidency in 2014.

Far behind the two historic formations, the Independent and Democratic Cape Verdean Union (Ucid, Christian Democrat) won 4 seats, confirmed the CNE, while three other small formations did not obtain any deputy.

Democratic exception in Africa, Cape Verde, an archipelago of 550,000 inhabitants in the middle of the Atlantic, about 600 kilometers off the coast of Senegal, is severely suffering from the coronavirus pandemic.

The country recorded in 2020 a historic recession of 14.8%, the epidemic having brought down the economy of this archipelago very dependent on tourism which represents 25% of its GDP. Since the 1991 free elections, the country has not recorded any incidents or violence related to the elections and their results. Cape Verde has a semi-parliamentary regime where the Prime Minister dominates the executive, the president (Jorge Carlos Fonseca, supported by the MpD) playing the role of arbiter.