: Legislative Elections of July 20131

Radim Tobolka, Univerzita Hradec Králové [email protected] Final draft, 22 April 2014

Since the previous presidential election of 2010, Togolese politics have seen important changes. The legislative elections which took place on July 25, 2013 accelerated this process of change. No violence, or large-scale fraud, was reported either during the vote or the subsequent compilation of results. The elections confirmed the demise of Gilchrist Olympio’s Union des forces de changement (UFC), which was considered the most radical opposition party until its power-sharing deal with President Faure Gnassingbé’s Rassemblement du peuple togolais (RPT) in 2010. Meanwhile, the incumbent Gnassingbé clique remained firmly in power due to the effective performance of their electoral party machine: the newly formed Union pour la République (UNIR). This party secured more than two-thirds (68%, n=62) of the seats in parliament. UNIR’s closest rival was Jean Pierre Fabre’s Alliance nationale pour le changement (ANC) which won 16 seats: a fact that highlights the current Togolese government’s large parliamentary majority.

Background Togolese politics under President Faure Gnassingbé continues to follow the same pattern established under the dictatorial regime of his father Eyadéma Gnassingbé (1967-2005). The backbone of Togo’s political establishment is the military where at least two-thirds (65%) of the army are Kabyè, which is the ethnic group of the Gnassingbé family (Toulabor 1999:106–107). France has provided military advisors and logistical support to the since the 1963 coup d’état in which Eyadéma Gnassingbé took an active part. Five presidential and five legislative elections (including the polls in question) have been held since the reintroduction of multipartism in 1991. State repression, violence, fraud, disagreements about legal frameworks and procedures, public protests, frustration, opposition boycotts, and disunity have characterized political competition over the last three decades, although the situation has been less violent in recent years (Roberts 2008; Seely 2006, 2011). Togolese politics are geographically and ethno-regionally structured. The largest ethno-linguistic political grouping, the Ewe, constitute close to half (45%) of the population and they mainly inhabit the southern quarter of Togo. The Kabyè whose original homeland lies in the northern third of the country form about 15% of the population. Apart from the long-standing competition between the Ewe and Kabyè for power and resources, Togo is a patchwork of up to fifty ethnic and ethno-linguistic groups that vary in size, historical relatedness and political awareness. Most of them do not automatically align with either the Ewe or Kabyè. The majority of Togolese parties have an ethno- regional core. Geography is the second important factor that has shaped Togolese electoral politics. Togo is a narrow strip of land running in a north-south direction to the Gulf of Guinea; the country is economically and culturally dominated by the capital Lomé: one of the most important deep sea ports in West . The south was exposed to German, and later French, colonial influence for a more prolonged period than the northern part of Togo. With independence, southern Togo (the Ewe heartland) inherited a better infrastructure, had a more westernized elite and its inhabitants felt

1 Funding for this article came from “Specificky vyzkum” grant of Univerzita Hradec Králové, calendar year 2012. The author thanks Pat Lyons and Arlene Archer for editorial help. Table 3 (electoral indices) was included upon Pat Lyons’ recommendation. All internet sources referenced in this article were saved in pdf and are available upon request from the author. Apart from desk research, the text is based on a fieldwork conducted in the five of Togo in October and November 2012. 1 culturally superior to the northern peoples. In terms of occupational roles, French and German colonizers tended to employ Ewe ‘southerners’ in their bureaucracy and ‘northerners’, including the Kabyè, in the army. When Ewe nationalists lobbied the international community to secede and found their own state along the Gulf of Guinea coast in the 1940s and 1950s, northern political elites aligned with the French colonial administration because they feared being squeezed between the flat grasslands of the Sahel to the north and an Ewe dominated state along the coast on the south that would cut them off from the modern world. However, when the Ewe failed in their national aspirations and re-oriented their effort towards immediate independence of the French as a whole, large numbers of northerners started to support the Ewe at the expense of their own conservative political elites (Labante 2010; Toulabor 1986). Thus, the key legislative elections of 1958 were won by the Ewe dominated Comité de l’unité togolaise (CUT) led by Sylvanus Olympio, Togo’s first post-colonial president following independence in 1960. The military coup of 1963, during which President Olympio was assassinated, shifted the power balance back to the north. President Eyadéma Gnassingbé’s dictatorship, which lasted for almost four decades, was deeply unpopular among most Togolese. It survived due a combination of brute force and the co-optation of ethno-regional elites including the southern ones.

Electoral system Formally, Togo has a bicameral parliamentary system, but only the has been established. In contrast to many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, direct parliamentary and presidential elections are not held simultaneously. The mandate of all Togolese national political representatives is five years. Since 2007, the electoral system for the National Assembly has been proportional representation with closed party lists. The territory is divided into 30 multi-member constituencies electing 91 members of parliament to the lower chamber.2 Togo’s electoral system has been criticized in two regards. Firstly, there are large variations in the sizes of the electorates and number of constituency seats across the 30 electoral districts (MOE UE 2007: 16–17, 52-55). For example, in the Grand Lomé electoral district, a Ewe stronghold, there were about 85,000 registered voters per seat in 2013 while in the Binah, a Kabyè stronghold, there were approximately 20,000 voters per seat. Secondly, the mandate allocation follows the rule of the highest averages while district magnitudes are low (MOE UE 2007: 17, 52-55). For example, in the 2013 legislative elections, 26 districts (out of 30) had only 2 or 3 seats. These circumstances enable the party with the largest proportion of votes within a district to obtain additional seats. In sum, the Togolese electoral system tends to limit Ewe electoral influence and to turn a weak countrywide majority of votes into a strong majority of seats which favours the incumbent party at the expense of the fragmented opposition.

Recent developments Togo’s party system, which crystallized between 1991 and 1994, remained stable until 2010. Thereafter, it changed rapidly for a number of reasons. The legislative elections of 2007 were the first legislative polls since the end of the Cold War that had full participation by all parties and only the second such election since 1958. In 2007, the opposition Union des forces de changement (UFC), led by Gilchrist Olympio (who is son of the first post-independence president) gained 27 seats out of 81 and another opposition party, the Comité d'action pour le renouveau (CAR) obtained 4 seats. The ruling Rassemblement du peuple togolais (RPT), led by Faure Gnassingbé, won the remaining 50 seats (Roberts 2008). Two and half years later, Olympio did not stand as the UFC candidate in the March

2 For the 2013 elections, the Golfe district was merged with the Grand Lomé district. Also, the total number of MPs in the National Assembly was increased from 81 to 91. 2 2010 Presidential Election, ostensibly because he was suffering from acute health problems. Consequently, the Ewe dominated UFC nominated at the last minute its General Secretary, Jean-Pierre Fabre, as the party’s presidential candidate. The official election tally gave 61% of the popular vote to the incumbent, Faure Gnassingbé, and 34% to Fabre (Seely 2011). In May 2010, it was discovered that Olympio, without the knowledge of the UFC national committee, had struck a power-sharing deal with the RPT that gave 7 ministerial portfolios to the UFC in the new government. This revelation led to the breakup of the UFC. Olympio’s minority faction managed to retain the UFC party label while the majority faction headed by Fabre founded a new party, called the Alliance nationale pour le changement (ANC) in October 2010. In the National Assembly, 18 UFC legislators switched to the ANC; however, Togo’s Constitutional Court deprived nine of them (Fabre included) of their mandate in November 2010 because they had signed a letter of allegiance to the UFC. The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) later annulled this decision but the Togolese Constitutional Court did not re-instate the expelled MPs. In April 2012, Faure Gnassingbé took the bold step of dissolving his own party, the RPT, which was founded by his father in 1969 and was instrumental in maintaining the regime for more than 40 years. Simultaneously, a “general assembly of founders” launched a new party called Union pour la République (UNIR) selecting Faure Gnassingbé as president of the party. Significantly, many of the national and middle ranking members of RPT did not always secure similar positions in UNIR as there was as a process of (re)application and many higher-level party structures were formed anew. The UNIR founding assembly intentionally met in , the most southern large urban centre not dominated by Ewe speakers. In April 2012, several opposition parties (including the ANC) and civil society groups united in a coalition called Collectif sauvons le Togo (CST, or the Save Togo Collective). In June 2012, CST organized a series of demonstrations in the capital, Lomé. The coalition raised a wide range of demands related to elections (e.g. redrawing electoral district boundaries, returning to a two term cap on presidential mandates, and presidential election with two rounds), institutional reforms (e.g. reinstating nine expelled opposition deputies and an independent judiciary) as well as grievances concerning the excessive use of violence by the security forces, economic mismanagement, etc. These protests are noteworthy because they were the first mass meetings held in Togo since the bloody Presidential Election of 2005. Similar demonstrations also took place in the second largest city, , 340 km north of Lomé; and later in Dapaong, a market town in the very north of Togo. CST mass demonstrations continued mainly in Lomé until the legislative elections in July 2013. These protests were accompanied by arrests and running battles with the security forces where at least one person was killed (RFI 2013a; CST 2014). These opposition CST activities formed part of a wider pattern of social unrest in Togo which included demonstrations by university students and members of the state employees’ trade union Synergie des travailleurs du Togo in large urban centres across the country (RFI 2013a). One of the responses to the consolidation of opposition around CST, was the emergence of a second opposition coalition called Arc-en-ciel (or the ‘rainbow’ coalition) in August 2012. This ‘rainbow’ coalition was led by the Comité d'action pour le renouveau (CAR) and distanced itself from the confrontational CST organized street protests. In the meantime, the changing political environment spurred the Gnassingbé regime to make changes within the governing elite. Pascal Bodjona, a Gnassingbé acolyte and one of the most powerful establishment figures in Togo, lost his ministerial post in a government re-shuffle in July 2012. He was replaced by Gilbert Bawara, another strongman of the regime. In September 2012, Bodjona was arrested, placed in detention and charged with fraud. These senior personnel changes suggest that the switch from RPT to UNIR and the increasing opposition activity were creating tensions in the

3 Gnassingbé administration. After the constitutional deadline to organize the elections passed in October 2012, President Faure Gnassingbé hinted that the polls could take place in the early part of 2013. Adding to the continuing tension and uncertainty, January 2013 saw arrests of a number of CST members in connection with fires that destroyed central market places in Lomé and the Kara earlier that month. Altogether, 35 persons were arrested and indicted and 25 were placed on remand pending trial including several senior leaders of the CST coalition. Under these circumstances, the participation of the opposition in the elections eventually scheduled for July 21 2013 was by no means certain and street protests continued. The election campaign officially commenced on July 6 – two weeks prior to polling day. The opposition maintained their threat to boycott the legislatives elections until July 9 when a last minute agreement with the government was brokered by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Atakpamé in the presence of Robert E. Whitehead, United States’ Ambassador to Togo. After more than a year of jockeying for position both within and across the government and opposition camps, the legislative elections finally took place on July 25 2013.

Contenders Togo’s Constitutional Court approved 185 candidate lists for the 2013 elections. These lists were submitted by two coalitions (CST and Arc-en-ciel), 12 political parties and 22 groupings of independent candidates. On polling day, Togolese voters were offered candidates from 163 coalition or party lists and 22 independent candidate lists yielding a total of 1174 candidates seeking election where the majority were men (n=1015) with about one-in-seven female candidates (CENI 2013).3 Apart from the ruling UNIR, three other “heavy-weight” parties competed in the elections. The ANC party, which was a leading member of the CST coalition, inherited most of the (radical) majority of the UFC electoral base. The ANC party is rooted in the Ewe ethno-linguistic grouping, but it harbours national ambitions and has tried to penetrate into northern areas of Togo as well. The political identity of the rump UFC party, which decided not join any pre-election coalition, is tied to the murder of President Sylvanus Olympio in 1963; the party claims continuity with the pre- independence nationalist Comité de l'unité togolaise (CUT). Gilchrist Olympio (son of Sylvanus) is President of the UFC party and lived in exile for decades. Most UFC voters appear to be Ewe speakers but the party is less ethno-regionally limited that the ANC. The extent of UFC versus ANC support was one of the main questions during the 2013 election campaign. The fourth largest parliamentary party, CAR, is a key member of the Arc-en-ciel coalition and won the first post-Cold War legislative elections in 1994. The electoral heartland of this party lies in Yoto district: a Ewe-speaking area in southern Togo and the birthplace of its founder, Yawovi Agboyibo. A host of smaller parties participated as well, either in one of the two coalitions or independently. Of this heterogeneous group one of the most important is the Alliance pour la démocratie et le développement integral (ADDI, member of CST) with a base in the far north of the country. Convergence patriotique panafricaine (CPP) is a successor of the Union togolaise pour la démocratie (UTD) founded by a well-known politician, Edem Kodjo, in 1991. Edem Kodjo, former Secretary General of the PRT, accepted Eyadéma Gnassingbé’s offer to become prime minister after a joint victory of the UTD and the CAR in 1994, thus splitting the opposition and enabling the dictatorship to continue. The CPP’s regional base is the Ewe-speaking Kpalimé area. Three newer parties also deserve to be mentioned because they highlight new trends and developments in Togo’s party system. First, there is Nouvel engagement togolais (NET, New Togo

3 It is not clear if the July 9 deal between the government and opposition resulted in any additions to the candidate lists. If there were additions, they were minor because the opposition had already submitted ‘full’ lists by the official June 19 deadline indicating it was committed to competing in the 2013 elections. 4 Engagement) an inclusive party founded by Gerry Taama, a Kabyè northerner who is a former soldier and novelist. Although this party did well in securing 14,225 votes spread across a number of constituencies, it failed to win a seat. Second, there is the Sursaut Togo (Wake up Togo, a member of the CST coalition), which is a project of Kofi Yamgnane, a French-Togolese politician originally from the Bassar area with its own ethnic identity. He is notable for being once a socialist deputy minister in a Mitterand administration in France; he was barred from participating in Togo’s Presidential Elections of 2010. Although, this party also failed to secure any mandate, an independent female candidate loosely affiliated to the party did win a seat. Finally, some note should be made of Parti démocratique panafricain (PDP, a member of the Arc-en-ciel ‘rainbow’ coalition), which also won a seat in the 2013 elections. This is a multi-ethnic initiative of academic and trade union leader, Bassabi Kagbara who lost out in the 2010 Presidential Elections, but is currently a vice-president in the Arc- en-ciel coalition. Relationships between the various opposition parties are complex and can be traced to their origins with the reintroduction of multiparty competition in 1991 and the personalities of their founders. For example, the Ewe speakers in the south regularly vote against the ruling party. But the Ewe political elite is split into three and more recently into four political blocs: UFC (Olympio), ANC (Fabre), CAR (Agboyibo), and CPP (Edem Kodjo). Distrust between the two opposition coalitions – CST and Arc-en-ciel – has multiple sources. For example, when Agbéyomé Kodjo, President of Organisation pour bâtir dans l'union un Togo solidaire (OBUTS, member of CST), served as Eyadéma Gnassingbé’s Interior Minister in 1993, about 20 people were shot dead in the ‘Fréau jardin massacre’ by security forces during a peaceful opposition demonstration. When the same Agbéyomé Kodjo served as prime minister between 2000 and 2002, Agboyibo, President of CAR (Arc-en-ciel coalition), spent seven months in prison after being successfully prosecuted for defaming Kodjo. In short, the relationship between Togo’s opposition party leaders is fraught with difficulties.

Campaigning The CST opposition coalition had been highly active for more than a year when the last minute election deal was brokered on July 9. For them, the campaign was simply a continuation of pre- campaign activities. As far as individual parties are concerned, only ANC and UNIR were able mobilize large electoral meetings, followed by UFC and ADDI. Lack of funds severely constrained the opposition’s ability to campaign outside of urban centres (cf. RFI 2013b). The opposition compensated for this shortcoming by emphasizing its moral standing and the continuity between the dictatorial RPT and UNIR. The ruling UNIR party launched a professionally designed campaign that encompassed all of Togo and consequently it was the most visible party in rural areas. The parties’ election programmes were of little relevance for voting because policy positions have little meaning for Togolese voters who have only experienced single party rule that is based on elite interests. Moreover, Togo’s parties present general policy programmes based on key themes. Thus President Faure Gnassingbé’s UNIR promoted the collective benefits of ‘development’ while the opposition emphasized the necessity of ‘political reform.’ In terms of identity-based discourse, UNIR marketed itself as a national, multi-ethnic party. Although this campaign message was judged to be little more than electoral rhetoric, this theme resonated with many of the younger generation of Togolese voters who expressed dissatisfaction with the constant bickering and divisions evident among opposition parties. In contrast, the opposition promoted an implicit message about the “equilibrium of cultures”, which is essentially a criticism of Kabyè (Gnassingbé) hegemony. Competence, often a substitute for issue-based campaigning, played only a minor role in the 2013 campaign because Togo has been so poorly governed since independence in 1960 that even UNIR

5 members admit it. Opposition party leaders have never been in power and so it is difficult for them to make credible claims about their competence for government. In terms of party-voter communication, face-to-face campaigning and private radio stations were the most important channels.

Results La Commision électorale nationale indépendante (CENI) announced the first complete results on July 30. See Table 1 for details.4 The CST “categorically rejected” the results and cited numerous irregularities and fraud (CST 2013a). Five official complaints were lodged with Togo’s Constitutional Court by representatives of CST, UNIR, and two independent candidates. In its decision of August 12, 2013, the Constitutional Court rejected all complaints and confirmed the official results (Cour constitutionnelle du Togo 2013). Both domestic and international observer missions judged the election process acceptable (Letogolais 2013). In the 2013 elections there were 3,044,332 registered voters out of a total population of about 6 million citizens. On polling day 2,011,203 votes were cast yielding a turnout rate of 66%. This represents a decline of 19% on the participation rate observed in the previous 2007 elections. The number of invalid votes was 119,430 which represent a similar portion to that recorded in 2007 (6- 7%). Faure Gnassingbé’s political gamble of replacing his RPT party machine with UNIR proved to be an effective electoral strategy. The RPT secured 62% of the lower chamber seats in 2007, while UNIR won 68% of the seats in 2013.5 One of the most striking outcomes of Togo’s 2013 legislative elections was the dramatic fall in UFC support; and it is likely that these poor poll results may spell the end of the Olympio family’s eight decade influence on Togolese politics.

Table 1: Results of legislative elections held on July 25, 2013

Seats per regions (from north to south) Parties Votes total Seats total Savanes Kara Centrale Plateaux Maritime

UNIR 880,608 62 8 14 11 22 7 CST 544,592 19* 2 1 1 2 13 Arc-en-ciel 204,143 6† - 1 - - 5 UFC 145,359 3 2 - - 1 - CPP 15,602 ------Independents 14,360 1 - 1 - - - NET 14,225 ------Others 66,171 ------Total 1,885,060 91 12 17 12 25 25

Sources: Cour constitutionnelle du Togo (2013); www.ceni-tg.org (61 files retrieved between 13 and 28 August 2013); http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/t/togo/togo2013.txt (retrieved 4 February 2014). Notes: *3 MPs from ADDI (2 in Savanes, 1 in Maritime region), 16 MPs from ANC. †1 MP from PDP (), 5 MPs from CAR.

To appreciate fully the significant realignment of the Togolese political scene in July 2013, it is necessary to examine the district or constituency level results along the north-south axis. In the

4 Togo’s electoral commission (CENI) did not publish polling station results allowing more detailed analyses to be undertaken. It is not clear if local CENI officials ever produced district-level data. In the absence of more detailed electoral returns it is not possible to check the integrity of the polling results for irregularities. For the same reason, the discrepancy of several thousand votes between the number of valid votes and total ballots issued shown in Table 1 cannot be reconciled in terms of blank or spoiled votes. 5 As the total number of legislative seats increased from 81 to 91 between 2007 and 2013, percentages are used to compare both election results. 6 Plateaux region, RPT secured 55% of seats in 2007 while UNIR gained 88% seats there in 2013.6 Similarly, in the southernmost Maritime region, the Gnassingbé’s ‘old’ RPT party won just 5% seats in 2007, but the ‘new’ UNIR boosted its seat share to 28% in 2013. The crystallization of the main opposition forces into two coalitions also bore fruit, although to a much lesser extent, in the two most northerly regions of Savanes and Kara. In 2007, the opposition won no seats in these two constituencies; in 2013, the CST and Arc-en-ciel coalition lists collectively won 14% of the seats there (MOE UE 2007: 76). The establishment of pre-election coalitions also put two new parties on the parliamentary map: ADDI (CST) which won 3 seats and PDP (Arc-en-ciel) with one seat. One seat also went to an independent female candidate loosely connected to the Sursaut Togo, as noted earlier. To assess the disproportionality of the electoral outcomes in Togo’s legislative elections of 2013, and more particularly the variation in vote-to-seat ratios between the incumbent (Gnassingbé) north and the opposition dominated south, a comparison of the vote-to-seat ratios in terms of government and opposition parties/coalitions is presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Votes needed to win one parliamentary seat in 2007 and 2013

Indicator Year RPT/UNIR UFC/CST CAR/Arc-en-ciel 2007 18,453 32,130 48,155 Votes 2013 14,203 28,663 34,024 2007 1.0 1.7 2.6 Ratio 2013 1.0 2.0 2.4

Sources: Roberts (2008) for 2007 and data in Table 1 for 2013 election.

Table 3: Comparison of electoral indices for the legislative elections of 2007 and 2013

Election year LSq Eff Nv Eff Ns N seats 2007 16.46 3.33 2.02 81 2013 16.76 3.13 1.95 91

Source: author Note that LSq refers to the Gallagher Index which compares the proportionality of votes and seats won by a party in an election using a least squares estimator (Gallagher 1991). Estimates of effective number of electoral and legislative parties, i.e. Eff Nv and Eff Ns respectively, are calculated using Taagepera and Laakso’s (1980) method. Other small (micro) parties with no parliamentary representation are excluded from estimations.

The upper part of this table shows how many votes each political grouping needed to win one MP seat in 2007 and 2013.7 The lower part of Table 2 expresses the same values as a ratio where the RPT/UNIR is set to “1”.8 Extending this analysis using standard measures of (dis)proportionality, i.e. the Gallagher Index and Laakso and Taagepera’s (1979) Effective Number of Electoral and Legislative Parties in Table 3, highlights that (a) the legislative election results in terms of proportionality in 2007 and 2013 are similar and (b) the level of electoral disproportionality in Togo is comparatively high as most European countries have values below 5. The difference in effective number of parties at the

6 The UNIR party was launched in this region a year before the elections in April 2012. 7 For simplicity, it is assumed that RPT support in 2007 ‘equals’ UNIR in 2013; and UFC support in 2007 ‘equals’ CST in 2013, etc. This facilitates making rough pairwise comparisons. 8 This assumption is necessary because the total number of registered voters and voter turnout are of course not exactly the same in 2007 and 2013. 7 electoral and legislative levels confirms the institutional bias in Togo’s electoral rules that benefits incumbents. To summarize, the evidence presented in Tables 2 and 3 reveals that in spite of the increase in the number of parliamentary seats (+10) between 2007 and 2010 and greater party competition across the entire country between government and opposition parties or coalitions, Togo’s north-south electoral disproportionality pattern is still strongly evident in 2013. However, attempts by the Gnassingbé regime to engineer electoral outcomes were not always successful because once parties run candidates in the heartlands of their competitors the impact of gerrymandering appears to have had unpredictable, or even unintended, consequences in the 2013 legislative elections. For example, in the Assoli district of the northern Kara region (RPT/UNIR stronghold) there were about 24,000 registered voters for two seats and UNIR was expected to win both of them. Nonetheless, the opposition CST coalition ran an effective campaign and managed to win a seat against the odds.

Aftermath For the Gnassingbé dominated ruling elite in Togo, victory in the 2013 Legislative Elections meant a continuation of the status quo. Large-scale street protests have stopped and the participation of the opposition ensured legitimacy of the electoral process. It is significant that (UNIR) was elected President of the National Assembly on September 2 because in the past he was director of presidential protocol and was twice a minister during Eyadéma Gnassingbé’s dictatorship. Bosses of state-owned companies who were enticed to join the UNIR election campaign were allowed to tender their resignations from the National Assembly allowing them to return to their lucrative posts. A new government was named on September 17 with Prime Minister Arthème Kwesi Séléagodji Ahoomey- Zunu (UNIR) being re-appointed. There were no significant political changes other than the government cabinet was scaled down from 31 to 26 ministerial portfolios and UFC obtained only three portfolios. Outward signs of activity within UNIR have ceased. Since its registration, the party has not held any congress, has not disclosed its party statutes, and its internet communication tools are either silent or do not contain any information about party activities at the time of writing (February 2014). There is no evidence that the formation of UNIR has led to any changes in the country’s governance structures. In the meantime, Faure Gnassingbé took additional steps to distance himself from his father’s controversial legacy. For example, Gnassingbé ensured that the new UNIR led government dropped the January 13 commemoration of the 1963 coup and the concomitant assassination of President Sylvanus Olympio as a state holiday. The opposition coalition, CST, has maintained its unity with some difficulties but it managed to produce a joint report accusing eight high-level state officials, both civilian and military, of staging the market fires in Lomé and Kara that had been blamed on the protestors (CST 2013b). Judicial proceedings against CST members in the market fire case are still ongoing; however, no trial has been scheduled.

Outlook The Presidential Election planned for 2015 is likely to be a watershed in Togo’s political history. Nothing prevents the incumbent President Faure Gnassingbé from running again because his party, RPT, removed the two terms cap from Togo’s Constitution in 2002. If he takes part and wins, it would extend the rule of the Gnassingbé dynasty from 1967 to at least 2020. However, the Gnassingbé regime’s grip on power is visibly weakening. It is no coincidence that the government has been dragging its feet on decentralization. Local elections, which have been repeatedly postponed, could significantly shake-up power relationships outside urban centres where Gnassingbé control over Togolese citizens is tightest. Notwithstanding popular disaffection with Gnassingbé single party rule, 8 many Togolese dislike the divisive political style of the main opposition ANC leader, Jean Pierre Fabre; and it is unclear if Togo’s opposition parties will be able to agree on a common more widely acceptable candidate in the Presidential Election of 2015. It is probable that Togo’s political parties will continue to follow the two strategies initiated in 2012. The governing UNIR party will try to solidify and extend its southward reach. The ethno- regionally based opposition parties will try to form coalitions connecting individual regions along the north – south axis. However, demographic changes may complicate this plan. Togo’s population is very young with 60% under the age of 25 years. By creating UNIR and arousing expectations in an important section of the younger generation, the ruling Gnassingbé elite has put an ace on the table. If political participation of younger voters remains limited and Togo’s government performance does not improve, many of the current supporters of UNIR may become disenchanted. Consequently, in the Presidential Election campaign of 2015, Faure Gnassingbé may find himself short of credible promises. If events take this course, a new northern, youth-based political party (such as Jerry Taama’s NET) may upset Togo’s current political balance between the government and opposition parties. Even if a coalition of opposition parties succeeds in dislodging UNIR from power one day, politics is very likely to remain a source of frustration, bitterness, and divisions because the quality of governance in Togo is constrained to develop at best in an incremental manner.

Bibliography CENI (La Commision électorale nationale indépendante), 2013. Législatives 2013: La Cour constitutionnelle publie la liste définitive des candidats. Retrieved 3 February 2014 (http://www.ceni-tg.org/legislatives-2013-la-cour-constitutionnelle- publie-la-liste-definitive-des-candidats). Cour constitutionnelle du Togo, 2013. Proclamation des résultats definitifs des élections législatives du 25 juillet 2013. Retrieved 29 August 2013 (http://www.ceni-tg.org). CST, 2013a. Conférence de presse: Le CST dénonce la publication de faux résultats par la CENI. Retrieved 5 February 2014 (http://www.collectifsauvonsletogo.com/conference-de-presse-le-cst-rejette-categoriquement-les-resultats-provisoires- publies-par-la-ceni-6261). CST, 2013b. Rapport de l’enquête sur l’incendie criminel des marchés du Togo dans les nuits des 10 au 11 janvier 2013 à Kara et 11 au 12 janvier 2013 à Lomé. Lomé: Collectif sauvons le Togo. Retrieved 8 February 2013 (http://www.collectifsauvonsletogo.com/rapport-de-lenquete-sur-lincendie-criminel-des-marches-du-togo-6333). CST, 2014. Déclaration du CST sur le 51ème anniversaire de l’assassinat de Sylvanus Olympio. Retrieved 3 February 2014 (http://www.collectifsauvonsletogo.com/declaration-du-cst-sur-le-51eme-anniversaire-de-lassassinat-de-sylvanus-olympio- 6408). Gallagher, M., 1991. Proportionality, Disproportionality and Electoral Systems. Electoral Studies 10(1), 33–51. Labante, N., 2010. Diversité ethnique et contruction nationale: l’exemple du Togo à la veille de l’indépendence. In: Gayibor, N.L., Goeh-Akue, N.A. (Eds.), Histoires nationales et/ou identités ethniques: un dilemme pour les historiens africains? Harmattan, Paris, pp. 185-208. Letogolais, 2013. Togo/Législatives 2013: l'intégralité du rapport préliminaire de l’Union Européenne. Retrieved 13 August 2013 (http://www.letogolais.com/imprimer.php?nid=7660). MOE UE, 2007. Elections législatives du 14 octobre 2007, rapport final. Lomé: La Mission d’Observation Electorale de l’Union Européenne au Togo. Retrieved 16 August 2013 (http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2007/togo/index_en.htm). RFI, 2013a. Deuxième décès au Togo lié à la manifestation de Dapaong. Retrieved 3 February 2014 (http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130418-togo-lome-deces-opposition-manifestations-fonctionnaires-salaires). RFI, 2013b. Fulbert Attisso sur RFI. Retrieved 6 February 2014 (http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20130731-fulbert-attisso-togo-rfi- unir-sauvons-togo-Faure-Gnassingb%C3%A9). Roberts, T., 2008. The Legislative Election in Togo, October 2007. Electoral Studies 27 (3), 558–561. Seely, J.C., 2006. The Unexpected Presidential Election in Togo, 2005. Electoral Studies 25 (3), 611–616. Seely, J.C., 2011. Togo’s Presidential Election 2010. Electoral Studies 30 (2), 372–375. Laakso, M. and Taagepera, R. 1979. ‘Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 12(1), 3–27. Toulabor, C.M., 1986. Le Togo sous Eyadéma. Karthala, Paris. Toulabor, C.M., 1999. Violence militaire, démocratisation et ethnicité au Togo. In: Otayek, R. (Ed.), Afrique: les identités contre la démocratie? Éditions de l’Aube, La Tour d’Aigues, pp. 105-115.

9