Togo: Nowhere To Turn

Nowhere To Turn: Frustrated Voters in Togo Are Caught Between a Brutal Dictator, a ‘Useless’ Opposition, and ‘Violent’ Protesters Togo In mid-July, Togo held an election to choose 1,527 municipal representatives. Polling stations, however, were largely deserted in Togo’s capital of Lomé and elsewhere. Some voters stayed away out of fear of violence. Others said the elections wouldn’t change anything, so there was no point in voting. “I’ve been voting since 1998, but this year is nothing like the others,” Sémon Aboudou told the Associated Press, standing outside of a nearly empty voting center in the capital’s Bè district, considered an opposition stronghold. “Even in 2019, there was more enthusiasm. Now people don’t see any change coming.” There wasn’t any change coming from this election: The ruling Union for the Republic (UNIR) party, in power in some form for almost 60 years, won with about 75 percent of the vote. The main reason for the voter apathy and their fear was the outbreak of violence in June ahead of the elections. Days of anti-government protests, rare in the country of nine million, were met with an ensuing crackdown that left at least seven people dead, more than 100 people detained, and others who are still missing. Still, something has shifted in the country, say analysts. The protesters, defying a ban on demonstrations, turned out in force because they were furious over a constitutional reform that took effect in May that changed the governance system. That reform gave the country’s longtime ruler, Faure Gnassingbé, even more power, and allows him to stay in office indefinitely. It also meant that the presidents of the country are no longer elected directly. Gnassingbé took over the country after the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, in 2005 without an election. His father was in power for almost four decades after assassinating the country’s first post-independence president in 1963 and launching two coups. Since then, the West African country, one of Africa’s poorest, but also one becoming increasingly important as a maritime and transit hub in the region, as well as a gateway to the Sahel – it is currently battling jihadists in that northern part of the country – has seen repression, rigged elections, and leaders that run the country like absolute monarchs. Before the protests erupted, anger had already been simmering over the spiraling cost of living in the country. Meanwhile, the results of the reform are deeply troubling even for a country that sees harsh repression but few protests, analysts say. “Togolese citizens have been stripped of their right to elect their president,” Paul Amegakpo, president of the Tamberma Institute for Governance, a Togolese think tank, told World Politics Review. “Even if elections were routinely rigged, removing (voters) altogether is deeply humiliating. And without term limits, Faure Gnassingbé can now remain in power for life.” The protests were initially sparked by calls for demonstrations by the popular rapper known as Aamron, who had long been publicly critical of the reforms. But they grew after he was arrested and physically and psychologically abused in custody. “Young people are exasperated by shortsighted and aimless governance, and by being held hostage by a regime incapable of providing the population with the basic necessities of life,” Bertin Bandiangou, a student who was arrested for opposing the government and tortured while in detention, told the Guardian. “Our message is clear: we no longer want a regime that imprisons our dreams and has terrorized an entire people for nearly six decades.” The outrage over his arrest was further inflamed after the government shut down the Internet, suspended international media outlets, and cracked down violently on protesters, deploying security forces as well as local and foreign militias to do so. For example, the parents of a 16-year-old boy found dead on June 27 told Amnesty International that members of the security forces in black uniforms had entered the neighborhood the previous day and fired tear gas and beat residents. The boy’s body was found along with that of another child, 15. The government, however, said the boys had “drowned,” according to “forensic analyses.” Meanwhile, the protests, which continue to simmer, are unique in that they were not led by the opposition – which is seen as ineffective and co-opted by the government – but by the young, mobilizing via social media, analysts added. “The Togolese are aware that there will always be repression, but they have reached a point where they can no longer stop themselves from expressing their frustrations,” political scientist Madji Djabakete told Deutsche Welle, adding that the protests to date were merely a “test” for a more structured uprising to come. Until then, the oldest dynasty in Africa remains entrenched in power, with no end date in sight, say analysts. And voters, meanwhile, are often caught in the middle between the protesters and the regime. “People are afraid, afraid of being attacked by protesters for legitimizing these elections, or afraid of being dispersed by security forces,” Edem Adjaklo, a voter in the capital, told Africanews. “They feel it’s pointless to vote because the results are always the same – predetermined.”