Togo 2018

Togo is located in the West African region with an estimated population of 8.2 million people. The economy is largely based on agriculture, mining and tourism, with the main exports being cocoa, phosphates and cotton. In terms of foreign relations, Togo is a member of the United Nations and other international organizations such as the African Union (AU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). According to extrareference, Togo is a unitary semi-presidential republic with an elected president who serves as head of state while the prime minister serves as head of government. In 2018, Faure Gnassingbé was elected to serve another term in office as President of Togo.

Yearbook 2018

Togo. According to Countryaah.com, Lome is the capital city of Togo, a country located in Western Africa. Street protests continued during the year with demands that President Faure Gnassingbé not be allowed to re-run and theoretically be able to remain until 2030.

Regional leaders and organizations such as West African ECOWAS have mediated unsuccessfully. The election was raised when ECOWAS held a summit in Togo in July. The Election Commission later determined that the election would be held on December 20. At least four deaths were required in protests before the election. The turnout was low 60%. According to preliminary figures, Gnassingbé’s Party of Collection for the Republic (UNIR) won a majority – 59 out of 91 seats – in the National Assembly. The party could count on the support of the Union of Changing Forces (UFC), one of twelve other parties that ran for office.

• According to Abbreviationfinder: TGO is an three letter acronym for Togo.

The largest opposition coalition, which brings together 14 parties, announced that it would boycott a referendum on the constitution proclaimed until December 16. They were also thinking of boycotting the parliamentary elections, even though they were not allowed to run for office. Twelve parties and 17 independent candidates got the go-ahead.

In June 2012, there were several days of demonstrations against an electoral reform the government had adopted in May. removed the restriction on re-election of the president. The protesters demanded a return to the 1992 Constitution that contained such a restriction. The demonstrations were turned down with tear gas and lace soup. In July, the president replaced Prime Minister Houngbo, who had surprisingly resigned with former Commerce Minister Kwesi Ahoomey-Zunu.

The parliamentary elections were originally to be held in October 2012, then postponed to March 2013, to finally be held in July. It was won by the ruling UNIR, which got 46.7% of the vote and 62 of the parliament’s 91 seats, while the opposition gathered in the Union des Forces du Changement (UFC) had to settle for 27 seats.

While presidential elections were scheduled for the first quarter of 2015, local elections remained uncertain. The last was held in 1986.

Gnassingbé was re-elected with 58.75% of the vote for a third term as president in the April 2015 election. His counterpart Jean-Pierre Fabre received 35.21%. Fabre insisted for some days that it was him who had won the election, but a week after the election, the Constitutional Court affirmed Gnassingbé’s election victory.

Security forces continued the tradition of using excessive violence against protesters. In a demonstration against the establishment of a new nature reserve in Mango in northern Togo in November 2015, security forces shot the protesters, killed 7 (including pregnant women and children) and injured 117. Similar demonstrations around the country during the year were also answered with sharp ammunition. No members of the security forces were brought to justice.

Independent media and websites were shut down by authorities during the year for the dissemination of “false information”. A French national was sentenced to 2 years suspended prison for the same offense and expelled from the country.

In August 2016, police attacked and wounded 10 protesters in Abobo-Zéglé. The protesters objected to being removed from their land where the government would establish phosphate extraction, declaring that they had not been adequately compensated for the expropriation. They were attacked by police with tear gas and lace.

From August 2017, the demonstrations around Togo grew with demands for the departure of President Gnassingbé. In the following months, over 10 protesters were killed and hundreds injured. The government responded on several occasions by interrupting the Internet, thereby breaking the opposition’s ability to communicate and coordinate. In October, Gambia’s foreign minister called on Gnassingbé to resign, but then hastened to change it to Togo’s people to decide the fate of the president. The Gnassingbé family has controlled the country for 50 years.