Cape Verde's (an Atlantic archipelago of 520,000 people, roughly 600 km off the coast of Senegal) National Electoral Commission confirmed on 30 May that the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), led by Francisco Carvalho, won the 17 May legislative elections with 48% of the vote, securing 37 of 72 parliamentary seats — a bare absolute majority. The left-wing party defeated the centre-right Movement for Democracy of outgoing Prime Minister Ulisses Correia e Silva by a margin of just 5,000 votes, ending his decade in power and paving the way for Carvalho, currently mayor of the capital Praia, to be named the country's next prime minister. The vote reinforces Cape Verde's reputation as one of Africa's most stable democracies — the country has held peaceful elections since 1991 — though electoral authorities expressed concern that turnout fell to a historic low of 46.5%.