By KATUMBA GERALD.
Lawmakers in Togo have approved changes to the constitution linked to presidential term limits and how presidents are elected, which some opposition politicians and civil society groups in Africa have denounced as a constitutional coup.
Togo’s parliament had already adopted the amendments on March 25, but the reforms led to an opposition backlash so President Faure Gnassingbe called for further consultations and a second parliamentary vote.
In a heated debate the lawmakers gave final approval to the reform, just days before the April 29 legislative elections that had also been pushed back due to the issues around the constitutional amendments.
The second reading was passed with all 87 politicians present agreeing to the new system, under which the president will no longer be elected by universal suffrage, but by members of parliament.
The amendments also introduced a parliamentary system of government and shortened presidential terms to four years from five with a two-term limit.
It does not take into account the time already spent in office, which could enable Gnassingbe to stay in power until 2033 if he is re-elected in 2025, a highly likely scenario as his party controls parliament.
Those opposed to the changes fear they could allow further extensions of the president’s 19-year rule and his family’s grip on power. His father and predecessor Gnassingbe Eyadema seized power in the coastal West African country via a coup in 1967.
Who is Faure Gnassingbe?
Togo, a nation of around eight million people, has been ruled by the Gnassingbe family for nearly six decades.
The current president was just six months old when his father, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, seized power in 1967, a few years after participating in the country’s first postcolonial coup in 1963.
His rule was characterised by brutality, his forces accused by Amnesty International of massacring hundreds after a fraudulent election in 1998.
When Eyadema, died in 2005, the military moved swiftly to install his 38-year-old son, Faure Gnassingbe, in the presidential palace, provoking widespread fury. Standing with his Union for the Republic party (UNIR), he won elections shortly afterwards.
However, the United Nations reported that security forces killed up to 500 people in the ensuing unrest.
In 2017 and 2018, there were further bouts of deadly unrest. Thousands of protesters gathered in the streets of Lome, the Togolese capital, to demand that Gnassingbe step down in accordance with the two-term limit set in the original 1992 constitution, a provision scrapped when parliament approved amendments removing presidential term limits in 2002.
Later parliament passed amendments in 2019, allowing limits to be reimposed for presidential terms from that year onwards, thus paving the way for the president’s re-election in 2020 and 2025.
Gnassingbe clinched a fourth term in the latest poll with runner-up Agbeyome Kodjo, who once served as his father’s prime minister, crying foul. He and other opposition members accused the government of using fake polling stations and stuffing ballot boxes.
Kodjo, went into hiding, dying in exile early this year.
Gnassingbe’s opponents now fear the president’s latest amendments to the constitution are designed to keep him in charge even when the presidential term limits end.
What are the proposed constitutional changes?
At first glance, the constitutional reforms appear to give critics what they want, restricting the power of the president, who would be directly appointed by parliament for a single six-year term.
Under the new system, executive power would instead lie with a “president of the council of ministers” and prime minister while Togo’s existing presidency will be reduced to a ceremonial role.
The holder of the new prime ministerial position, which would run for a six-year term, would be “the leader of the party or the leader of the majority coalition of parties following the legislative elections.
Opponents fear he could not only be reappointed president until 2031 but could also then step down from the job and switch to the new role of “president of the council of ministers” in what they say would be a constitutional coup.
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