By Jabez Yakah
Togo’s president Faure Gnassingbe on Monday signed a new constitution that eliminates presidential elections. It is a move that the opposition describes as a deliberate attempt to extend the six-decade-long rule of the president’s family.
The new law means that parliament is responsible for choosing the president. The Election Commission on Saturday announced that the president’s ruling party won the majority of the seats in parliament.
Prior to the voting, civic and media freedoms were impeded as the government banned protests against the then proposed constitutional reforms which saw the arrest of some opposition members.
In April, a French journalist who arrived in the West African country to cover the elections was arrested, assaulted, and expelled. The country’s media regulator; the High Authority for the Electronic Media Broadcasting and Communication (Haute Autorité de l’audiovisuel et de la communication-HAAC) then suspended the accreditation process for foreign media.
The provisional results showed that the Union for the Republic (UNIR) party won 108 out of 113 seats in Parliament and 137 out of 179 positions in the Senate.
The new law also increases the president’s tenure of office from 5 years to 6 years with a single-term limit.
Togo has been ruled by the Gnassingbe family for 57 years. The opposition, religious leaders, and civil society groups have said that, with the dawn of the new law, President Gnassingbe stands the chance of extending his grip on power even beyond the new term limit defined by law. Some civil society groups are calling for protests to reinstate the old constitution.
“We will never accept this new constitution, even after its promulgation. The Togolese people must decisively look towards 2025… At that point, a presidential election is absolutely necessary for the people to choose a new president and finally achieve a democratic transition in Togo,” said David Dosseh (spokesperson for the civil society groups) to the Associated Press.
Source: www.africanews.com
