In our continuing “series of election reports”:https://themonkeycage.org/election_reports/, we are pleased to welcome “Tyson Roberts”:http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/hire-a-ucla-ph-d/hireaphd/tyson-roberts, a Ph.D. candidate in the “UCLA Political Science Department”:http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/ with the following report on the 2010 Togo Presidential Elections:
On Saturday, March 6, Togo’s election commission declared President Faure Gnassingbe the winner of the March 4 presidential election with 1.2 million votes out of 2.1 million cast (60.9% of the total) for his second term in office, following nearly 40 years of rule by his father. Turnout was 64% of registered voters. The primary opposition candidate, Jean-Pierre Fabre of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), received 34% of the vote (detailed results are available at the “commission’s website”:www.ceni-togo.org).
President Gnassingbe is the son of the late Gnassingbe Eyadema, who took the presidency in 1967 in a coup and ruled until his death in 2005, after which the constitution was suspended and Gnassingbe declared president by the army and the ruling party, the Rally for the Togolese People (RPT). In response to domestic and international pressure, Gnassingbe stood for his first election later that year, which he won (amid violence and alleged fraud) with 60.2% of the vote, according to the official numbers. Turnout in 2005 was also the same as it was last week, 64%.
As has been the case in previous elections, the opposition accused the ruling party of fixing the election. One complaint was that military personnel were “allowed to vote early”:http://allafrica.com/stories/201003031020.html. The government responded that the early voting was necessary to enable the armed forces to maintain peace and order during the elections. Furthermore, they claimed that they were successful in doing this without the violence that has marred previous elections, including hundreds killed in the 2005 presidential election, when results were protested by the opposition as fraudulent. Most of the election this year was peaceful, and what conflict did occur was of a decidedly lower magnitude. The day before the election, a throng of RPT supporters met a parade of UFC supporters, “each side claimed victory and heckled one another, all in good spirit and without animosity” (ibid). After the election, “protests were small”:www.republicoftogo.com: “Police spokesman Abalo Assih says officers in the capital earlier fired tear gas on some 200 protesters angry that the opposition party was trailing”. International observers said they saw no overt signs of fraud, only some vote-buying.
The opposition has repeatedly suffered (with few exceptions) from an inability to unify behind a single opposition candidate, and the same was true last week. In addition to Fabre for the UFC, Yawovi Agboyibo of the Action Committee for Renewal (CAR) and four minor party candidates contested the election. Perhaps the UFC and CAR, who won 45% versus the RPT’s 39% in the 2007 legislative elections, could have won the presidency if they had agreed to a single candidate. The opposition would have had a chance to unite after an initial round if they had succeeded in convincing the RPT to return to a two-round election system, but the RPT refused, meaning only a plurality remained necessary for victory. The two opposition parties attempted for months to agree on a single candidate, but neither would agree to the other party’s choice. Although the electoral code was amended in 2009 to eliminate the residency requirements that disqualified Olympio in previous contests, he withdrew his candidacy because of health problems, and former party secretary-general Jean-Pierre Fabre stood for the UFC. The CAR’s Agboyibo came in third with 3% of the vote (slightly worse than his 5% third place finish in 2005). In addition to a lack of unity, the opposition parties suffered from inferior resources. “For example”:http://allafrica.com/stories/201003031020.html, “the incumbent toured the country by helicopter, while the other seven candidates had to use modest modes of transport to canvas for votes”.
As in previous elections, the opposition won in the south, home to the Olympio family’s Ewe ethnic group, Togo’s largest, while the RPT won in the north, where Eyadema’s family’s Kabye ethnic group is based. Fabre won about 70% of the votes in the capital city of Lome. The CAR’s Agboyibo is from the Yoto Prefecture in the south, and won the plurality there with 40%. Gnassingbe, on the other hand, won 86% of the vote in the two northern regions, Kara Region and Savanes Region. Almost half of the president’s votes came from these two northern regions, where he benefited from higher rates of turnout (78%) than was the case in the other three regions (61%). Turnout was lowest (averaging 56%) in the opposition strongholds of Lome and Yoto prefecture.
Last week’s election was the fairest and most free presidential election held in the country’s history, but this isn’t necessarily saying a lot. In the country’s first presidential election, Sylvanus Olympio of the Party of Togolese Unity (PUT) ran unopposed. The PUT is the predecessor of the current primary opposition party, the UFC. Olympio was assassinated during a coup led by the current president’s father in 1963, who then installed Nicolas Grunitzky as president. This choice was confirmed in an unopposed presidential election later that year. In his second coup in 1967, Eyadema installed himself as president and established the RPT as the sole legal party in 1969. In 1972 Eyadema won a referendum to remain president with 99.9% of valid votes, and won unopposed presidential elections in 1979 and 1986 with an average of 99.96% of valid votes.
After neighbor Benin began to democratize in 1990, Togo came under international and domestic pressure to liberalize its political system. In 1992, voters approved a multiparty constitution in a referendum with 99% of the vote. Under the original 1992 constitution, the president must be 45 years old, is elected in a two-round election process (if a majority is not attained in the first round), and can only be re-elected once. The first presidential election under the new constitution was held in 1993 and was boycotted by the main opposition parties, who complained of vote-rigging and violence. Eyadema won against minor parties with 96% of the vote. All international voters (with the exception of the French) rejected the results, and the EU suspended foreign aid.
The second multiparty election was held in 1998, and in this one the main opposition parties did participate and split among themselves 48% of the vote, with the largest share going to the UFC’s Gilchrest (son of Sylvanus) Olympio, with 34% against Eyadema’s 52%. In spite of the opposition’s strong showing, they had many complaints about this election as well: they said government supporters had voting cards duplicated and triplicated while opposition supporters weren’t able to register, that polling centers in opposition areas weren’t provided with polling papers, and that opposition party activists were subjected to acts of violence (Economist Intelligence Unit Country Report, July 31, 1998). After the election, counting was delayed, and both Olympio and Eyadema declared victory. The president of the electoral commission, an ally of Eyadema, stepped down, and the minister of the interior took over the counting. The minister announced that Olympio had won 90% of the votes in the capital of Lome, but that Eyadema had won virtually of the votes in the north. The UFC’s current presidential candidate Fabre was secretary-general of the UFC at the time. He called for demonstrations and pleaded with the entire international community to break off relations with “the illegal regime of the RPT” (ibid). Olympio continued to claim victory, and there were protests for days, some with the chant “Eyadema thief, France the accomplice” (ibid). However, the constitutional court confirmed the results.
In 2002, following a legislative election boycotted by the opposition, the RPT-dominated legislature changed the constitution in several ways: the two-round presidential election system was replaced with a one-round system (thus lowerin the threshold from majority to plurality); the one-time re-election limit was removed; the age was lowered from 45 to 35, clearing the way for Faure Gnassingbe to run for president; and residency requirements were put in place that precluded Olympio, who had fled to Paris after an assassination attempt, from running. Eyadema won the ensuing presidential election in 2003 with 58% of the vote against Olympio’s replacement, Emmanuel Bob-Akitani, and other opposition candidates.
In 2004, Eyadema pledged to the EU that the next legislative elections would be held under a new electoral code, in exchange for a resumption of foreign aid. This political liberalization was suspended when Eyadema died, however, and RPT loyalists and the army suspended the constitution to put the current president in office. As in similar contests, the UFC claimed to win the presidential election in 2005 and protests were violently suppressed by security forces.
After this election, however, the political liberalization proposed by Eyadema was pursued by Gnassingbe. In response to continued pressure from the EU, the government signed a comprehensive accord with the main opposition parties (including the UFC) in Ougadougou. Part of this accord was the electoral commission would include members of the opposition for the first time, and in 2007 the legislature amended the electoral code, returning responsibility for organizing the ballot from the Interior Ministry to the electoral commission. A new registry and registration cards were created with anti-fraud features including photographs and fingerprints. Although there were some minor complaints from the opposition about irregularities during the campaign and election, the international community pronounced the legislative election in 2007 fair. The opposition won the majority of votes, but because districts in the north required fewer votes per seat than districts in the south, the RPT retained a majority in the legislature (details on this election are in my 2008 Electoral Studies note).
The presidential election in 2010 was the first presidential election to be conducted by the independent electoral commission, although three opposition candidates temporarily withdrew their representatives in the run-up to the election because they claimed the RPT was preparing to fix the vote (EIU Country Report, March 3, 2010). Worries that reactionary forces in the RPT and the army would disrupt the campaign were diminished when the president’s brother and sometime rival, Kpatche Gnassingbe, was arrested in April 2009.
Whereas in previous elections the RPT had won by banning the opposition or violence and fraud, it appears that the president won this time by mobilizing the vote. In spite of opposition claims of election-rigging, international observers said they saw no signs of fraud, but “did witness vote-buying”:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/06/world/AP-AF-Togo-Presidential-Election.html. Election monitors witnessed members of the ruling party handing out rice at three to four times below the market price; this discounted rice has been nicknamed “Faure rice.” These efforts may explain the higher turnout in the north. As noted “in the New York Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/06/world/AP-AF-Togo-Presidential-Election.html : “Jean-Claude Homawoo, the vice president of the election commission who is a member of the top opposition party, said that voters are so used to elections being rigged in Togo that they gave up hope just when their vote may have counted. ‘It’s the effect of successive failure. So many times we went and voted in elections we knew we had won, only for the opposite result to be declared. So people have become tired. They don’t believe their vote counts anymore.”’