About this election
The Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe, a two-island nation in the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Central Africa, holds the first round of its presidential election on 19 July 2026. With an electorate of around 130,000, it is one of Africa's smallest democracies — and one of its most stable, having held regular competitive multiparty elections since the end of one-party rule in 1990. The vote chooses a head of state for a five-year term in a semi-presidential republic where executive power is shared between the President and a Prime Minister drawn from the National Assembly. Incumbent President Carlos Vila Nova, elected in 2021, is eligible to seek a second term.
The President is elected by direct universal suffrage using a two-round majority (run-off) system: to win in the first round a candidate must secure more than half of all valid votes; if none does, the two best-placed candidates contest a second round several weeks later. The presidency is a powerful office in São Tomé's constitution — the head of state can dissolve parliament, appoints the Prime Minister taking account of the parliamentary majority, and has historically acted as a check on the government — but day-to-day executive authority rests with the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, who are responsible to the 55-member National Assembly. This division of powers means cohabitation between a president and a government of different political colours is common and has repeatedly shaped the country's politics.
Two parties have dominated since independence from Portugal in 1975. The Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe – Social Democratic Party (MLSTP/PSD) is the historic former single party that led the country to independence and governed for decades. Its main rival is Independent Democratic Action (ADI), founded and long led by Patrice Trovoada, son of former president Miguel Trovoada, which has been the other principal pole of power. Smaller parties and coalitions, along with independent candidates, also contest the presidency, and the office has frequently been won by figures running with party backing rather than as formal party leaders.
Carlos Vila Nova, an ADI-backed independent and former infrastructure minister, won the 2021 presidential election, and ADI under Patrice Trovoada went on to win an absolute majority in the September 2022 legislative election, making Trovoada Prime Minister. The period has not been without drama: in November 2022 the country experienced an attempted coup, which the government said it had repelled, followed by controversy over the deaths of detainees. The islands face the familiar challenges of a small island developing state — dependence on imports and external aid, a narrow economy built on cocoa, fishing and nascent tourism, and long-discussed but largely unrealised offshore oil prospects in the Gulf of Guinea.
The 2021 presidential election went to a run-off. In the first round on 18 July 2021 Carlos Vila Nova led the field; in the second round on 5 September 2021 he defeated the MLSTP/PSD candidate, former prime minister Guilherme Posser da Costa.
| 2021 run-off | Vote % |
| Carlos Vila Nova (ADI-backed) | 57.5 |
| Guilherme Posser da Costa (MLSTP/PSD) | 42.5 |
The central questions are whether President Vila Nova seeks and secures a second term, how the MLSTP/PSD and other challengers position themselves, and whether the result reinforces or unsettles the cohabitation with Patrice Trovoada's ADI-led government. With such a small electorate, campaigns are intensely personal and local, the autonomous region of Príncipe carries symbolic weight, and the diaspora — concentrated in Portugal — can matter at the margins. Turnout and the first-round/run-off dynamic will be the key indicators on the night.
São Tomé and Príncipe is a lower-middle-income micro-state whose economy rests on agriculture — historically cocoa — fishing, donor support and a small but growing tourism sector. For two decades hopes have rested on potentially large offshore oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Guinea, including a joint development zone shared with Nigeria, but commercial production has yet to materialise and the windfall remains hypothetical. Public finances are tight and the country is exposed to external shocks and high shipping costs. How candidates propose to diversify the economy, attract investment and manage the long-promised oil question features in every national campaign.
This page will display the live national count and a district-level map across the islands as results are released by the National Electoral Commission (Comissão Eleitoral Nacional, CEN), updating through any run-off until a winner is confirmed.
The first round is scheduled for 19 July 2026. If no candidate wins an absolute majority, a run-off between the two leading candidates follows a few weeks later. The President is elected for a five-year term.
Carlos Vila Nova, an independent backed by the Independent Democratic Action (ADI) party, has been President since September 2021. Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada (ADI) leads the government, which holds a parliamentary majority won in 2022.
By direct universal suffrage using a two-round (majority run-off) system. The President is head of state with significant powers in a semi-presidential republic, while executive government is led by a Prime Minister responsible to the National Assembly.
Politics centres on two long-standing parties: the Independent Democratic Action (ADI) and the historic Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé and Príncipe – Social Democratic Party (MLSTP/PSD), along with smaller groupings. The islands are one of Africa's smaller and more stable multiparty democracies.
With an electorate of around 130,000, counting is comparatively quick and a provisional first-round result is usually known within a day or two. ElectioMap will publish the live national result and district breakdown as it arrives from the CEN.
Príncipe, the smaller of the two main islands, has its own autonomous regional government and elects a regional assembly, but it shares the national presidency with São Tomé. Although its population is small, it carries symbolic weight in national campaigns, and candidates routinely campaign there to demonstrate that they will govern for the whole archipelago rather than the larger island alone.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.