- Cape Verde's President Jorge Carlos Fonseca won a landslide victory in a nation hailed as a model for African democracy, sweeping nearly three quarters of the vote, partial results showed.
Without a strong challenger for the top post, Fonseca won a whopping 73 percent of the vote yesterday, with independent candidates Albertino Graca and Joaquim Monteiro taking just 23 and three percent of the ballots each.
Winning with such a large margin, Fonseca, 77, should be able to avoid a run-off.
Abstention soared however in the Atlantic archipelago at 60 percent, according to partial results released late Sunday, with 80 percent of the votes counted.
Fonseca's win was by no means a surprise, after his liberal Movement for Democracy (MFD) enjoyed a string of landslide victories this year.
Fonseca had called on supporters to "say yes to freedom, justice and Cape Verde" and re-elect him for another five-year term, urging voters not to give in to fatigue caused by other electoral contests held this year.
The MFD's victories in a March general election and municipal polls in September dealt serious blows to the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), which consequently decided not to field a presidential candidate.
Turnout yesterday was very low, despite calls from all sides for voters to cast their ballots.
Fonseca's two rivals were veteran political campaigner Monteiro, 76, a key player in the country's fight for independence from Portugal, and university rector Graca, 57.
In 2011, Fonseca beat PAICV's Manuel Inocencio Sousawon in a runoff with 54 percent of the vote.
On Friday Fonseca promised to "push the government to make economic growth for everyone a priority and to fight unemployment and poverty".
African Union electoral observer Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo, head of a team of 29 deployed for the vote, told AFP the former Portuguese colony was "an example as regards transparent elections".
Some 314,000 island residents and 47,000 citizens living abroad were registered to vote.
Cape Verde gained independence from Portugal in July 1975, after an 11-year liberation war, and adopted a multi-party system in 1990.
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