In Togo, adoption of a new Constitution contested by the opposition, a few days before the legislative elections

Just ten days before the legislative elections, the Togolese deputies definitively adopted, on Friday April 19, a new Constitution, contested by the opposition. Adopted in the evening with 87 votes out of 87, the new fundamental law switches the country from a presidential regime to a parliamentary regime and marks the disappearance of direct suffrage to choose the President of the Republic, at the same time as it creates the function of president of the council of ministers, which concentrates all powers.

The supreme judiciary is, according to the terms of the new Constitution, emptied of its substance, since the new president is deprived of all prerogatives. It is the deputies who will elect the head of state “without debate” And “for a four-year term, renewable once”. The real exercise of power will reside in the hands of a president of the council of ministers, a sort of super-prime minister, who will necessarily be “the leader of the majority party” to the National Assembly, stipulates the new text.

The opposition sees in this new function a maneuver on the part of President Faure Gnassingbé to remain in power, he who took the head of state in 2005 following his father who remained in charge for nearly thirty-eight years. from the country. He is president of the majority party in the Assembly, the Union for the Republic (UNIR).

“Institutional coup d’état” denounced by the opposition

For Nathaniel Olympio, president of the Parti des Togolais (PT, opposition), the Togolese president “demonstrated that the major concern of his regime is to retain power no matter what”. With the new Constitution, “it is the function of president of the council which gives someone the latitude to exercise power in an unlimited manner and therefore, logically, we deduce that this is the position that he reserves for himself”he explained to AFP Friday morning.

The head of state had already reorganized the Constitution in 2019, which allowed him to run for two new additional mandates, in 2020 and 2025. But he would have been forced to leave power in 2030.

Togolese deputies had already adopted the new Constitution on March 25, after a few hours of debate and without the text being made public, which immediately triggered an outcry among the opposition and civil society, who quickly qualified this vote of “institutional coup”.

To come into force, the new Constitution must still be promulgated by the head of state.

Legislative elections under tension

This constitutional change is going all the worse as it comes a few days before the legislative elections, initially scheduled for April 20, but ultimately postponed to April 29, to give deputies time to vote on the text again, as well as the head of state had requested it. They will take place on the same day, and for the first time in the country, as the regional elections.

Unlike the last legislative election in 2018, which it boycotted, the opposition has decided to mobilize massively this year. She had planned two days of demonstrations, April 12 and 13, but they were banned by the authorities, and members of the opposition were prevented from meeting.

In a region troubled by coups d’état (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea) and political crises (Senegal), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) dispatched a mission on Monday to Lomé. The regional institution initially mentioned “the crucial context” in Togo and “seriousness of controversial constitutional reforms”. Before making an about-face the next day, explaining in a press release that she was carrying out “a pre-election assessment” And “will not engage in any further process, as indicated in a previous statement”.