Ruling party sweeps Equatorial Guinea elections

MALABO, May 20 (Reuters) - Equatorial Guinea's ruling party has overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections, reducing the opposition presence in the 100-member assembly to just one seat from the previous two, electoral officials said on Tuesday.

The Constitutional Court announced the final results from the May 4 polls, underscoring President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's control over parliament in the West African oil producer.

Equatorial Guinea, located in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, has risen since its first oil discoveries in the mid-1990s to become sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest crude exporter after Nigeria and Angola.

But most of its population of around half a million still live in poverty.

In a country where political dissent is rare and Obiang's power is all pervasive, the only major opposition party, the Convergence for Social Democracy (CPDS), managed to hang on to only one of the two seats it won in the 2004 elections.

The single CPDS seat was obtained in the capital Malabo.

Obiang's ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), along with its coalition allies, won 99 seats, according to the official results. In the municipal elections also held on May 4, the PDGE and its allies obtained 319 councillor seats, while the opposition CPDS won 13.

The elections were held peacefully and the result was widely expected.

Observers say the national assembly is seen as little more than a rubber stamp for presidential decisions, and often as a vehicle for political patronage and personal enrichment.