TEHRAN, November 26 (MNA) – A failed coup attempt has taken place in Sao Tome, the country’s Prime Minister Patrice Emery Trovoada said on Friday.

"There was an attempted coup d'etat which began around 00:40 and...

ended shortly after 6:00," Trovoada said, adding that "armed forces were attacked in a barracks".

The prime minister announced that the attempted coup was carried out by four men, including the former president of the outgoing National Assembly, Delfim Neves, and a former military officer who had already been involved in a coup attempt in 2009.

"The situation in the barracks is under control, but we must be sure that the country is completely under control," Trovoada urged, Sputnik reported.

Neves, allegedly implicated in the coup attempt, ran in the 2011 presidential election and finished third with 14.4 percent.

In 2018, he was elected as president of the Democratic Convergence Party-Reflection Group.

In November of the same year, Neves became the president of the National Assembly with 28 votes, three votes ahead of his closest rival Carlos Cassandra Correia.

In 2021, Neves ran for president as a candidate for his Democratic Convergence Party-Reflection Group.

He finished third with 16.9 percent of the vote and challenged the results, claiming that there had been "massive electoral fraud".

However, his accusations were rejected by the Constitutional Court, which confirmed that the elections had been perfectly transparent.

The most recent attempted military coup in Sao Tome occurred in 2003.

The leaders of the coup against President Fradique de Menezes justified their actions by claiming that the officials in power were incapable of dealing with a pandemic of poverty.

MNA/PR