Sao Tome and Principe president dismisses government, blaming ‘inability’

Sao Tome and Principe’s president has dismissed the government over an “inability” to resolve problems facing the tiny West African state and “frequent” absences by the prime minister.

The decision by President Carlos Vila Nova was announced in a decree dated Monday and published on the presidency’s Facebook page.

It highlighted a “notable inability” by Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada’s government “to provide solutions” to the country in the face of “the scale of existing problems”.

It also pointed to “frequent and prolonged periods of absence by the prime minister… from the national territory”.

Both the president and premier are members of the centre-right Independent Democratic Action (ADI) party, which won parliamentary elections in 2022.

The party has 72 hours to propose a replacement as prime minister, the decree said.

Sao Tome, a desperately poor former Portuguese colony in the Gulf of Guinea that gained independence in 1975, has a history of coup attempts.

In November 2022, Trovoada announced the army had thwarted a coup.

That followed attempted coups in 2003 and 2009, after which the country stabilised and won praise for its political stability and parliamentary democracy.

Since the archipelago opened up to a multiparty system in 1991 after 15 years of single-party rule by a Marxist regime, the ADI is one of two major parties that have vied to run the nation of around 200,000 inhabitants.

In May last year, Portugal said it was “greatly concerned” by reports that Sao Tome and Principe had signed a military cooperation accord with Russia.