{"id":46898,"date":"2026-09-30T15:10:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=46898"},"modified":"2026-09-30T15:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:10:05","slug":"sao-tome-and-principe-opposition-leads-legislative-polls","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sao-tome-and-principe-opposition-leads-legislative-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe opposition leads legislative polls \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Movement for the Liberation of S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe, Social Democratic Party (MLSTP-PSD) has emerged ahead in S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe&#8217;s legislative elections, securing 24 of the 55 seats in the National Assembly according to provisional results released by the National Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The governing Independent Democratic Action party followed closely with 23 seats, while the MCI-PS and PUN coalition secured six seats, and the Basta Movement won two seats.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Voter turnout fell sharply, with voter abstention reaching 62.92%. Electoral observation missions from the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and the International Organisation of La Francophonie declared the voting process free, transparent, and credible, while issuing urgent recommendations for legal and structural reforms to address escalating voter apathy across the island nation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":46900,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-46898","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe opposition MLSTP secures 24 seats in legislative election ","published_date":"2026-09-30 15:07:08","news_description":"S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe opposition MLSTP secures 24 seats in legislative election ","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46901,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/46898\/revisions\/46901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=46898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}