The country's leaders hope their switch in support from Taiwan to mainland China will trigger an avalanche of cash and investment
Patrice Trovoada is a confident man these days. The Gabonese-born Prime Minister of São Tomé e Príncipe jokes, in private, about Donald Trump's slim chances of re-election as United States President – and is similarly dismissive of the prospects of his own opponents. When Evaristo Carvalho, a long-term ally of Patrice and his father Miguel Trovoada, the country's first Prime Minister, was elected President in July 2016, that confirmed the Trovoada family's supremacy. Trovoada also feels it marks his final victory in the long-running political rivalry over the archipelago's historical independence party, the Movimento de Libertação de São Tomé e Príncipe-Partido Social Democrata (MLSTP-PSD) and his veteran rival, former President Manuel Pinto da Costa.
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