Putting an end to recurring political tensions in Togo

A research paper by the Institute for Security Studies analyzing the risk of political crisis in Togo due to the failure to implement electoral reforms proposed in the 2006 Global Political Agreement (GPA) ahead of 2013 and 2015 elections.

• The failure to consensually implement electoral reforms proposed in the 2006 Global Political Agreement (GPA) creates a risk of an election crisis for the presidential and local elections scheduled for 2015 and late 2013 respectively.
• The composition of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a primary point of contention; while local branches were expanded to include the opposition, the central body remains imbalanced with only three of 17 members belonging to the opposition and three from civil society.
• There is a dispute over electoral boundaries and seat distribution. The ruling Union for the Republic (UNIR) maintains that the April 10, 2013 decree is consistent with the GPA, whereas the opposition argues it ignores demographic criteria and creates inconsistencies between voter numbers and seats per constituency.
• Political actors are divided over the voting system. The opposition demands a return to the two-round system established in the 1992 constitution, while the ruling UNIR is perceived to prefer a single-ballot system for presidential elections and closed list proportional representation for parliamentary elections.
• The limit on presidential terms is a major point of disagreement. The 1992 constitution limited terms to two, but the 2002 constitution removed this limit. The opposition wants this limit applied immediately to President Faure Gnassingbé, whose second term ends in 2015, while UNIR may argue the principle of non-retroactivity of the law.
• The opposition has accused the ruling party of monopolizing state media. Despite promises from the High Authority for Audio-visual and Communication (HAAC), only the official Togolese Television (TVT) covered the announcement of election results.
• The results of the July 2013 legislative elections have increased tensions. UNIR won an absolute majority with 62 of 91 seats and 880,000 votes, while the opposition—comprising the Save Togo Collective, the Rainbow coalition, the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), and Upsurge Togo—won 29 seats and 900,000 votes, leading the opposition to claim the results were skewed by flawed re-districting.

APA

Lidawo, K. (2013). Putting an end to recurring political tensions in Togo. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/putting-an-end-to-recurring-political-tensions-in-togo

Chicago

Lidawo, Kilo. Putting an end to recurring political tensions in Togo. Institute for Security Studies, 2013. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/putting-an-end-to-recurring-political-tensions-in-togo.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lidawo |first1=Kilo |title=Putting an end to recurring political tensions in Togo |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=20 November 2013 |url=https://issafrica.org/iss-today/putting-an-end-to-recurring-political-tensions-in-togo |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lidawo2013putting, author = {Lidawo, Kilo}, title = {{Putting an end to recurring political tensions in Togo}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2013}, month = nov, url = {https://issafrica.org/iss-today/putting-an-end-to-recurring-political-tensions-in-togo}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }