Fradique de Menezes

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Fradique de Menezes

Fradique Melo de Menezes (born March 21, 1942 in Água Têlha) was President of São Tomé and Príncipe from 2001 to 2011 . The São Toméers address him by his first name only.

Political career

He was born on the island of São Tomé, then part of Portugal, as the son of a Portuguese and a local. After attending school, he studied psychology and education at the University of Brussels and international economics at the Chicago Board of Trading. He later served as a soldier in the Portuguese army in Mozambique . When São Tomé and Príncipe became independent on July 12, 1975, he joined the previous independence movement Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Príncipe (MLSTP), which subsequently ruled the country as a unity party . He initially worked in the Ministry of Agriculture, but switched to the private sector in 1977. From 1981 he was ambassador to various countries.

From 1986 to 1987 he was foreign minister and special envoy to the European Community and a number of international organizations and European countries. When democracy was gradually introduced from 1989, he went into the private sector. He became a successful businessman as an exporter of cocoa and an importer of cement . In the first multi-party elections in 1991 he was elected to parliament for the Acçao Democrática Independente (ADI) and in 1992 President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In 1993 he took over the chairmanship of the ADI.

president

Since President Miguel Trovoada was not allowed to run again after two terms in 2001, his party nominated ADI Menezes as a presidential candidate. To do this, he had to give up his Portuguese citizenship . In the elections on July 29, 2001, he prevailed with 56.31% of the votes in the first ballot. In second place was former President Manuel Pinto da Costa , who received 38.73%. On September 3, 2001 he took over the official business. In September he appointed his previous cabinet director Evaristo Carvalho as the new prime minister and dissolved parliament on December 8, 2001. The new elections on March 3, 2002 resulted in a stalemate that was overcome in April by the formation of a coalition government.

On July 16, 2003, while he was in Nigeria , Fernando Pereira led a coup against President Menezes and the government of Maria das Neves, which had been in office since October 2002 . After negotiations, international mediation and an amnesty for those involved, the rebellion was ended peacefully after seven days.

Oil deposits discovered in the meantime led to increased income in the previously very poor country. Associated with this are allegations of corruption against the president, the rapidly changing prime ministers and individual ministers, with the president and former heads of government accusing one another. Since April 21, 2006, Tomé Vera Cruz is the seventh government in office since he took office. Fradique de Menezes was re-elected in the 2006 presidential elections with 60.0% of the vote, while his opponent Patrice Trovoada received 38.5% of the vote.

His term of office ends with the presidential elections on July 17, 2011, as the constitution does not allow Fradique to rule for a third term.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography Fradique Melo de Menezes on the official website of the President of São Tomé e Príncipe ( Memento of the original of October 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Portuguese) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.presidencia.st
  2. ↑ Federal Foreign Office: Country Info
personal data
SURNAME Menezes, Fradique de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Menezes, Fradique Melo de (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION São Tomé politician, President of São Tomé and Príncipe
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Água Telha