Accra, October 5, 2017//-The ongoing crisis in Togo which already claimed two lives and wounded several others in that small country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north, is making political analysts doubting whether the ruling Gnassingbe dynasty can hold on to power for the next decade.
The current President Faure Gnassingbe has been in power since the death in 2005 of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had been at the helm for 38 years.
He ruled Togo under a one-party system, and died of a heart attack on 5 February 2005. After his death there was a disturbance as to who lead the country.
Prior to his election, President Gnassingbe was appointed by his father, President Eyadema, as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications, serving from 2003 to 2005.
Following the demise of his father, President Gnassingbé was immediately installed as President. There were suspicions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of the succession led to heavy regional pressure being placed on Gnassingbé, and he subsequently resigned on 25 February., 2005.
Then he won a presidential election on 24 April 2005, and was sworn in as President. It is important to note that in Togo, the President is elected by universal and direct suffrage for five years. After ruling successfully in his first term, President Gnassingbé was re-elected for a second term in 2010.
President Gnassingbé won a third term in the April 2015 presidential election by defeating his main challenger, Jean-Pierre Fabre by a margin of about 59% to 35%, according to official results. This margin alone tells political observers that popularity of the Gnassingbe dynasty is fading.
Hostilities
Several attempts to get President Gnassingbe out of office have been proved futile. He has survived three titanic political elections already.
Just this Saturday, 19 August, 2017 in the capital city of Lome, thousands of protestors wearing the red colours of the opposition PNP party were stopped from advancing towards the presidency.
Chanting and singing “50 years is too long!”, the protestors called for the reinstatement of the constitution limiting terms that late Eyadema introduced in response to protests in 1992. Although, the protestors made their demand clear to the government, the ever-supportive security forces of the Gnassingbe family fired tear gas to disperse the protesting crowd.
However, media reports said in a parallel protest in Sokode, 338 km north of the capital, clashes erupted and Togolese forces used live bullets, killing two and injuring 13 others.
The security ministry ran quickly to the defence of the government claiming that apart from the casualties among protestors 12 gendarmes had also been wounded.
Ali Boukari, one of the protestors said: “We do not understand our little Togo”. “The father Eyadema was in power for 38 years, his son will soon have done 15 years. All we are demanding is a term limit and they shoot (tear gas) at us.”
“We are protesting against the arbitrary nature of governance and denial of freedom to assemble,” according to PNP leader Tikpi Atchadam.
After decades of dictatorship rule, Togo’s 1992 constitution introduced notional multi-party democracy and limited presidential terms to two, but ten years later lawmakers amended it to enable President Eyadema to run for another term – a common pattern in some parts of Africa.
The protests that followed President Gnassingbe’s first election victory in 2005 triggered a violent security crackdown in which around 500 people were killed.
Furthermore, President Gnassingbe who is the current ECOWAS Chairman has also survived a coup staged by two of his half-brothers named as Kpatcha Gnassingbe and Essolizam, in 2009.
The two half-brothers of the president were tried by the Supreme Court on 1st September 2011.
Former Defence Minister Kpatcha Gnassingbe who was arrested as he sought refuge in the US embassy after the alleged coup attempt was accused of masterminding the alleged coup plot, along with his brother Essolizam.
About 30 other people, including the former head of the armed forces, Assani Tidjani, were also accused of taking part in the alleged coup attempt, in which two persons were said to have died.
The trial, according to political watchers had brought to the fore the long-standing family rivalry between the two sons of the late President Gnassingbe Eyadema.
Gnassingbe’s Economic Magic Wand
Under the leadership of President Gnassingbe, the country’s economy has shown solid performance in recent years, with sustained growth and low inflation. It was well contained, thanks to lower food, energy, and transport prices.
Togo’s growth performance has been underpinned by high levels of public investment to address significant infrastructure gaps.
However, this capital spending has also increased public debt and debt service pressures, crowding out needed social expenditures. At the same time, lingering deficiencies in the financial sector have remained unresolved, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Figures from the Togolese government indicated that the economy has expanded at a healthy rate in recent years. Growth was 5.2 percent in 2014-16 buoyed by infrastructure investments and strong agricultural production.
The fast pace of public investment has contributed to a pronounced increase in public debt and the current account deficit. Public debt, including prefinancing debt, domestic arrears, and public enterprise debt, increased from 48.6 percent of GDP in 2011 to 80.8 percent in 2016 (76.2 percent excluding public enterprise debt), reflecting public infrastructure investments financed by both domestic and external borrowing.
The current account deficit remained high, reaching 9.8 percent of GDP in 2016, largely due to investment-related imports.
Growth
World Bank and IMF have predicted the country’s economic growth is expected to increase gradually in the medium term as the fiscal stance is put on a sustainable path. Growth is expected to pick up from 5 percent in 2016 to 5.6 by 2021, with the economy reaping the benefits of an improved transportation network and productivity gains in the agricultural sector.
The private sector is expected to play an increasing role as the engine of growth, as public investment returns to its long-term sustainable level.
Downside risks to growth include capacity constraints in implementation of structural reforms, resistance to reforms from interest groups, and further slowdown in Togo’s main regional trading partners. With the improvement in the fiscal stance, public debt is expected to be reduced to 73 percent by 2019 from a projected peak of 81.3 percent of GDP in 2017..
Togo’s poverty rate declined to 55.1 percent in 2015 from 61.7 percent in 2006, though it remains geographically concentrated.
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, African Eye Report
Email: mk68008@gmail.com
