FIRST results from Sunday’s presidential elections on the African islands of Sao Tome and Principe pointed to a likely run-off between the two top candidates, electoral officials said. Businessman Fradique de Menezes, a former foreign minister, appeared to have an edge over Manuel Pinto da Costa, who ruled the former Portuguese colony as a Marxist state from independence in 1975 until 1991, they said. Fradique de Menezes has the backing of outgoing President Miguel Trovoada in a contest sharpened by the hope that oil will turn Sao Tome’s people from some of the poorest in the world to some of the richest. Five candidates vied for support from the fewer than 70_000 voters on the volcanic islands, some 300km off the African coast, which currently survive on aid, small cocoa exports and tourism. Sao Tome and Principe make up Africa’s smallest country after the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The islands have the dubious honour of being the launching pad for the trans-Atlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas. – Reuters