TODAY IN HISTORY

|INDEPENDENCE FOR THE ISLANDS OF SAO TOME AND PRINCIPE|

On this day in 1975, after a period of transitional government, São Tomé and Príncipe achieved independence, and the MLSTP (Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé) Secretary, General Manuel Pinto da Costa, became the country’s first president.

The Movement for the Liberation of São Tomé, set up in 1960, consisted of only a small group of exiles who were unable to mount a guerilla challenge to the Portuguese living on the island. 

However, the government that took power from the authoritarian Estado Novo regime in the 1974 military coup in Lisbon Portugal agreed to hand over power to the MLSTP in 1975, causing all the Portuguese colonists living on the African island to flee. 

The country’s first president, Manuel Pinto da Costa, was elected in 1975. The government of São Tomé and Príncipe initially followed eastern European models of political and economic organization. However, economic decline and popular dissatisfaction led to a process of liberalization that started in 1985 and culminated in the establishment of multiparty democracy in 1990.