Five candidates confirmed for Sao Tome and Principe presidential race
Less than a month before the 19 July 2026 election, the presidential race in São Tomé and Príncipe is entering its final stretch.
The Constitutional Court validated, on 16 June, five of the six candidacies: the incumbent President Carlos Vila Nova, running for a second term; former Prime Minister Jorge Bom Jesus; the parliamentary leader of the ADI, Nito D’Abreu; as well as jurists Miques João Bonfim and Eugénio Tiny.
The main favourites are Carlos Vila Nova, who is relying on a message of unity despite divisions within the ADI; Jorge Bom Jesus, the main opposition candidate; and Nito D’Abreu, considered a credible alternative.
The only rejected candidacy is that of Nino Monteiro, a businessman, deputy, and president of the MCI-PS/PUN coalition, dismissed due to criteria related to his family background. His party denounces a decision they consider contrary to Article 15 of the Constitution, discriminatory, and politically motivated, and announces an appeal to the Constitutional Court on behalf of São Toméans born in the archipelago.
According to provisional data from the National Electoral Commission (CEN), 142,298 voters are registered, nearly 19,000 more than in 2022. The electorate comprises 121,771 voters on the national territory and 20,525 in the diaspora.
Parliamentary democracy took a long time to come to Sao Tome and Principe, which was ruled for 15 years as a Marxist one-party state by the MLSTP that had opposed the Portuguese regime.
Once a constitutional referendum to introduce multiparty politics and a limit of two terms for the president was approved by more than 95 percent of voters in 1990, democratic elections were held.
The civil authorities withstood military coup bids in 2003 and 2009.
