Presidential election in Togo 2020

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Faure Gnassingbé (2014), incumbent President and election winner

The presidential election in Togo 2020 took place on February 22, 2020 in Togo , West Africa . Incumbent Faure Gnassingbé was re-elected.

Starting position

Members of the Gnassingbé family have been in power in Togo for over 50 years. Gnassingbé Eyadéma had been state president since a coup in 1967 ; his son Faure Gnassingbé succeeded him in 2005 . The opposition has repeatedly called for the presidential term of office to be limited by the constitution. Before the parliamentary elections in 2018 , Faure Gnassingbé also supported a restriction to two terms in office, unless it was retroactive.

Parts of the opposition had boycotted the 2018 parliamentary elections, which is why two thirds of the parliamentarians are now from the ruling party UNIR . In early May 2019, they voted in favor of the constitutional amendment, which limited the president's term of office to two five-year terms. The fact that the previous terms of office are not counted enables incumbent Gnassingbé to run again in 2020 and 2025. In addition, the President was granted lifetime immunity for actions taken during his tenure .

The ruling party has a great deal of influence over the organizations responsible for conducting the election. For example, only two out of 19 members of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) are provided by the opposition. Regional election commissions, which are responsible for submitting the results in their area of ​​responsibility to CENI, are headed by judges selected by the ruling party.

On November 13, 2019, several opposition parties and representatives of civil society, including bishops, called for the electoral process to be suspended in order to reinstate the Constitutional Court, establish a reliable electoral register and reorganize the Independent National Electoral Commission . In December 2019, the constitutional court was partially redesigned, the majority of its members were again provided by representatives of the ruling party. The chairman of the largest opposition party, ANC, Jean-Pierre Fabre, criticized the process, saying that no real restructuring had taken place.

On December 5, 2019, the date and modalities of the election were set in a decree by the Council of Ministers. According to this, citizens could vote on February 22, 2020 from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. local time . For the first time, Togolese living abroad were able to vote in some embassies. The election campaign should take place between February 6 and February 20, 2020. As is customary in the country, the security forces were able to cast their votes 72 hours before the actual election date in order to ensure security on election day. If no candidate had achieved at least 51 percent of the vote in the election, a runoff would have been provided for the two candidates with the most votes. Of the approximately 3.6 million eligible voters, around 87 percent had a voting card.

On February 1, 2020 civil rights organizations and opposition groups wanted to hold protests. They demanded that regional results of the constituencies would be published directly and no longer centrally by CENI in order to reduce the possibility of electoral fraud. However, these demonstrations were not approved. Togo's Minister for Human Rights Christian Trimua announced that the results of individual polling stations would not be published, only aggregated results.

Around 315 international election observers were sent to Togo, mainly from the West African Economic Community (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU). Each candidate was allowed to send representatives to the almost 9400 polling stations. An election observation by the Catholic Church was not allowed. On February 17, 2020, CENI withdrew the civil society association Concertation Nationale de la Société Civile of the election observation authorization granted in January.

Freedom of assembly was restricted before the election, and demonstrations were only allowed for a limited time in back streets. A specially created electronic system for recording the election results was overridden by the electoral authority two days before the election.

Candidates

Jean Pierre Fabre (2010), best-known opposition candidate

From December 27, 2019 to January 8, 2020, candidates for the presidency could register with the electoral commission. Of the ten registered candidates, the Les Rassembleurs electoral alliance withdrew its candidacy and called on its supporters to support Agbéyomé Kodjo . On January 17th, the Constitutional Court published the final list of candidates. Two applicants were not admitted: Innocent Kagbara (PDP) because of concerns about his residence certificate and Aubin Kodjovi Thon (Nouvelle Vision) because of an insufficient number of statements of support. Thus seven candidates were allowed to vote.

procedure

The election was largely peaceful. However, Fabre and Kodjo complained of a number of irregularities on election night. The houses of Agbéyomé Kodjo and of Bishop Philippe Kpodzro , who supported Kodjo in the election campaign, were briefly surrounded by troops after the polling stations were closed. According to the government, the military presence was ordered "for their own safety" for the two personalities. Of the estimated 1.5 million Togolese living abroad, only 348 took part in the election. Internet access was restricted on election day, social networks were blocked and critical media websites were blocked.

Results

CENI announced the provisional result on the night of February 23rd to 24th. According to this, Gnassingbé won the election with 72 percent of the vote, and Kodjo, the strongest opposition candidate, received 18 percent. On March 3, 2020, the Constitutional Court confirmed Gnassingbé's election victory and published the final result, which differed only slightly from the preliminary result:

candidate Nominating party %
Faure Gnassingbé Union pour la Republique (UNIR) 70.78
Agbéyomé Kodjo Mouvement Patriotique pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MPDD) 19.46
Jean-Pierre Fabre Alliance for Change (ANC) 04.68
Aimé Gogué Alliance des Démocrates pour le Développement Intégral (ADDI) 02.40
Komi Wolou Pacte Socialiste pour le Renouveau (PSR) 01.20
Georges William Kuessan Santé du Peuple 00.80
Mohamed Tchassona-Traoré Mouvement Citoyen pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MCD) 00.68

According to the preliminary results, 2,769,286 Togolese exercised their voting rights.

Reactions

Opposition candidate Agbéyomé Kodjo described the preliminary election result as a forgery. He declared that he had received the majority of the votes himself and called on President Gnassingbé to resign. The two candidates Gogué and Wolou also saw Kodjo as the winner and complained about intimidation attempts and serious election fraud. Kodjo appealed against the preliminary election results to the Constitutional Court. The complaint was dismissed.

Bishop Kpodzro described the provisional result announced by CENI as a farce and bizarre and called on the population to demonstrate.

A representative of the election observers from ECOWAS stated that the election took place without major incidents and that it was peaceful and legal. Election observers from the AU congratulated the population and the political actors for the good conduct of the election. Representatives from both organizations appealed to candidates to take legal action if they want to contest the result.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Mawuna Koutonin: Togo has long been mired in political crisis - and elections won't change that. In: theguardian.com . February 21, 2020, accessed on February 21, 2020.
  2. ↑ Togo: Escalation before the election In: dw.com . December 10, 2018, accessed December 30, 2019.
  3. ↑ Dirke Köpp: Comment: Opposition in Togo without vision . In: dw.com . May 10, 2019, accessed December 30, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b c La présidentielle fixée on 22 février 2020 in Togo. In: voaafrique.com . December 6, 2019, accessed December 30, 2019 (French).
  5. ↑ a b c Alix Boucher: Five Issues to Watch in Togo's Presidential Election. In: africacenter.org . February 14, 2020, accessed on February 19, 2020.
  6. ↑ Aboudou Assouma remains. In: independantexpress.net . December 30, 2019, accessed February 19, 2020.
  7. ↑ Katrin Gänsler: Election in Togo: Change of power? Rather not. In: taz.de . February 21, 2020, accessed February 28, 2020.
  8. ↑ Togo votes as president Gnassingbeé expected to win fourth term. In: theguardian.com . February 22, 2020, accessed on February 22, 2020.
  9. ↑ Katrin Gänsler: Little hope for change in West Africa's oldest family dictatorship. In: dw.com . February 21, 2020, accessed February 21, 2020.
  10. ^ Togo election: Main observer group barred from monitoring. In: aljazeera.com . February 21, 2020, accessed on February 21, 2020.
  11. ↑ a b Hans-Joachim Preuss: And the dynasty greets forever. In: ipg-journal.de . February 25, 2020, accessed February 28, 2020.
  12. ↑ Emmanuel Vivien Tomi: Togo / Politique: Présidentielle de 2020 Environ 14 candidats probables ou déclarés, en attendant la décision de la Cour Constitutionnelle. In: referencetv.tg . December 13, 2019, accessed on January 2, 2020 (French).
  13. ↑ Fin de dépôt de dossiers de candidature pour la présidentielle 2020: La Ceni enregistre 10 dossiers.Voici là liste ajoutée. In: togotimes.info . January 9, 2020, accessed January 9, 2020 (French).
  14. ↑ Louis Kamako: Presidential 2020: Un candidat s'est désisté au profit de Kodjo. In: togobreakingnews.info . January 14, 2020, accessed on January 19, 2020 (French).
  15. ^ Didier A .: Togo: 2 candidatures invalidées par la Cour constitutionnelle. In: togobreakingnews.info . January 17, 2020, accessed on January 19, 2020 (French).
  16. ^ Togolese opposition denounces vote irregularities. In: africanews.com . February 23, 2020, accessed on February 23, 2020.
  17. ↑ After the election in Togo, two sides claim victory. In: orf.at . February 24, 2020, accessed February 24, 2020.
  18. ↑ Gnassingbé wins election in Togo. In: spiegel.de . February 24, 2020, accessed February 24, 2020.
  19. ↑ a b Faure Gnassingbé elected with a majority of 72.36% of votes in the first round of presidential elections (provisional results). In: togofirst.com . February 24, 2020, accessed on February 28, 2020.
  20. ↑ a b La messe est dite. In: republicoftogo.com . March 3, 2020, accessed March 3, 2020 (French).
  21. ↑ Lekan Oyekanmi, Didier Assogba: Togo's president wins, keeping family's long hold on power. In: sfchronicle.com . February 24, 2020, accessed on February 28, 2020.
  22. ↑ Togo opposition condemns fraud as Gnassingbé claims election win. In: africatimes.com . February 24, 2020, accessed on February 28, 2020.
  23. ↑ Togo: Agbéyomé Kodjo conteste sa défaite et dépose un recours devant la Cour constitutionnelle. In: jeuneafrique.com . February 27, 2020, accessed on February 28, 2020 (French).
  24. ^ Togo opposition calls for protests against election results. In: rfi.fr . February 26, 2020, accessed on February 28, 2020.