Cape Verde Set For Parliamentary Votes As Almada Seeks to Be 1st Woman P.M.

As Cape Verde readies to vote in Sunday’s parliamentary election, current Prime Minister Correia e Silva and his centre-right Movement for Democracy party are hoping for another term.

Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva’s Movement for Democracy (MpD) is being closely contested by the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), a socialist party led by Janira Hopffer Almada.

Almada is a lawyer and worked as an associate at her father’s firm, D. Hopffer Almada and Associates. She is a member of the Cape Verde Bar Association and was a teacher at the Jean Piaget University of Cape Verde from 2003 to 2006.

Almada was Municipal Representative in the 2008 municipal elections and was elected to parliament in 2011. She became Minister of Youth, Employment, and Human Resources Development.

Almada was elected leader of the PAICV on 14 December 2014 with 51.24% of the votes, succeeding José Maria Neves, becoming the party’s youngest, as well as first female, president.

She led the party to the 2016 elections; after the MpD party won a landslide victory, she announced her resignation.

However, she decided to run again at the next party convention, and won reelection as the party president.

On August 2016, Almada was invited to a congress held by the MPLA, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola in Angola as a delegate, both parties linked to the struggle against colonialism and for independence.