{"id":237444,"date":"2016-08-08T08:41:42","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T08:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237444"},"modified":"2016-08-08T08:41:42","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T08:41:42","slug":"president-boycotts-own-run-off-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=237444","title":{"rendered":"President boycotts own run-off vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">In an unusual move, the president of the west African state of Sao Tome and Principe has boycotted his own run-off election, handing victory to his rival.<\/p>\n<p>Manuel Pinto da Costa withdrew from Sunday&#8217;s poll, alleging fraud in the first round held on 17 July.<\/p>\n<p>His rival Evaristo Carvalho, a former prime minister, is now certain to win the race.<\/p>\n<p>He had won the first round with 49.8% of the vote while Mr Pinto da Costa had taken 24.8%.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/3688\/production\/_90706931_034442351-1.jpg\" alt=\"Supporters of Evaristo Carvalho wearing T-shirts and holding placards picturing the politician celebrate in Sao Tome, 18 July\" width=\"745\" height=\"495\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span>Posters of Evaristo Carvalho are seen here being brandished by supporters<\/figure>\n<p>Ahead of Sunday&#8217;s run-off, he had called on his supporters not to vote, and later reports said many of them had stayed away.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Pinto da Costa ruled Sao Tome with an iron fist for the first 15 years after independence from Portugal in 1975.<\/p>\n<p>He lost the presidency after introducing reforms in 1990, including multi-party democracy, but in 2011, he was re-elected to office.<\/p>\n<p>Sao Tome and Principe, a former Portuguese colony, consists of two islands of volcanic origin and a number of smaller islets lying off the western coast of Africa.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In an unusual move, the president of the west African state of Sao Tome and Principe has boycotted his own run-off election, handing victory to his rival. Manuel Pinto da Costa withdrew from Sunday&#8217;s poll, alleging fraud in the first round held on 17 July. His rival Evaristo Carvalho, a former prime minister, is now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":237445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=237444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/237445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=237444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=237444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=237444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}