Miguel Trovoada

Miguel dos Anjos da Cunha Lisboa Trovoada (born December 27, 1936 in São Tomé ) was Prime Minister (1975–1979) and President (1991–2001) of São Tomé and Príncipe .

Before independence

Trovoada was born in São Tomé, the capital of the archipelago that then belonged to Portugal . He went to school for a while in Angola, also in Portugal, and then studied law at the University of Lisbon .

In 1960 he co-founded the independence movement CLSTP, alongside Manuel Pinto da Costa , which was renamed Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Príncipe (MLSTP) in 1972. At the organization's headquarters in Gabon , he was responsible for foreign policy from 1961 until the country's independence in 1975. In 1972 he was recognized by the Organization for African Unity for the movement .

prime minister

With independence on July 12, 1975, Manuel Pinto da Costa became first president and Miguel Trovoada prime minister. The MLSTP was the country's unity party . Relations between the two quickly cooled and in March 1979 the office of Prime Minister was abolished. A few months later, he was accused of conspiracy against the government and was detained in pre-trial detention for the next 21 months without any form of charge. After his release (without trial) he went into exile in Paris .

president

In 1989/1990 the MLSTP changed its course and introduced democracy. After the introduction of a new constitution, Trovoada returned from exile and ran as a non-party candidate for the office of president. President da Costa did not run again and the previous unity party, which was renamed MLSTP-PSD, did not put up a candidate of its own. After the surrender of two other candidates, he was elected on March 3, 1991 as the only candidate with 81% of the vote and took office on April 3, 1991.

The former unity party was again the strongest party in the parliamentary elections in October 1994 under the name MLSTP-PSD. Towards the end of his first term in office he founded the Ação Democrática Independente ("Independent Democratic Action"). On August 15, 1995, he and the government of Prime Minister Carlos da Graça were toppled by a coup by a small group of soldiers following nationwide unrest . Six days later, negotiations ended the coup attempt.

On July 21, 1996, he was re-elected president with 52.7% of the vote in the second ballot. His main competitor was his predecessor, who was just behind him on the first lap.

In his ten-year presidency he had seven prime ministers. Problems during his term of office were the poor economic situation, rapidly changing governments and frequent conflicts with the MLSTP-PSD, which had achieved an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in November 1998. On September 3, 2001, his second term ended and Fradique de Menezes was his successor, who had again faced Manuel Pinto da Costa in the second ballot.

Web links

• History and election results ( Memento of May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )