Africa-Press – Cape verde. The president of the PAICV, Rui Semedo, celebrated his victory in the local elections in the archipelago on Sunday, now leading the majority of the 22 municipalities on the 10 islands.
The party leader spoke at a time when the count was still underway in around three dozen of the 1,079 polling stations, but with the local government already preparing for a reversal, with the MpD taking seven to eight councils and the PAICV growing to 15.
“In addition to the eight [councils] we already had, we won six more”, stressed Rui Semedo in a statement to the media in Praia.
The president of the PAICV highlighted “the signs” that already existed and that led the party to surpass the minimum established target of 12 councils.
Rui Semedo said that in terms of vote representation, the main parliamentary opposition party is preparing to jump “from 38% of voters (…) to 68%”. Francisco Carvalho, the PAICV’s reelected mayor of Praia, celebrated the party’s victory in the capital, but also in the archipelago. “It’s time to start preparing for the future”, said Francisco Carvalho, in a victory statement in Praia. “This result is not only seen in Praia, but the entire national scenario is changing. Cape Verde is painted yellow”, he said, in an allusion to the PAICV’s colour. Francisco Carvalho had won the country’s main municipality from the MpD in 2020, in a close election, in which he won by a margin of less than a thousand votes, and has now managed to gain an advantage of around 10,000. The re-elected mayor beat the candidacy of Abraão Vicente, a former minister whom the MpD had appointed to try to retake the capital.
In his victory statement, Carvalho recalled that, at the start of the political year in September, he had indicated that the PAICV should aim to achieve a majority in local government for the first time.
“They told me that it was too ambitious, that it was crazy”, but it was a goal that took into account “a deterioration in the country’s governance” and the “critical capacity of Cape Verdeans”, he said.
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