Francisco Carvalho

About

Francisco Avelino Vieira de Carvalho (born 4 December 1970) is a Cape Verdean politician and the current prime minister of Cape Verde since 2026. A member of the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, which he leads, he has also served as mayor of the municipality of Praia since 2020.
In the 2026 parliamentary election, Carvalho’s party secured a majority in the National Assembly.

== Early life ==
Carvalho was born on 4 December 1970, in Fogo, Cape Verde. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a doctorate in Migration, Ethnic Minorities and Trans-nationalism, both from the NOVA University Lisbon. In 2002, Carvalho established the Association of Young Cape Verdean Researchers at university in Lisbon and became its first president. He had moved back to Cape Verde by 2008, when he led a research project on urban violence in the country’s cities.

== Mayor of Praia ==
In October 2020, he was elected President of the City Council of the municipality of Praia, equivalent to mayor, representing the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, and he took office on 20 November. During Cape Verde’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Carvalho was criticised by then-prime…