How entrenched leaders are avoiding elections — and still remain in power - video Dailymotion

DW (English)

Forget ballot box drama and endless reelection battles: Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe just rewrote the rules. By swiftly switching the constitution, he dodges term limits and crowns himself all-powerful prime minister. Has the Togolese leader just unveiled a bold new survival trick for Africa's old entrenched leaders?

Transcript

00:00Why go through the drama of rigging elections over and over when you can

00:17simply rewrite the rules and stay in power indefinitely? In Togo, President

00:22Foregina Simbe has pioneered a bold new tactic for Africa's longtime rulers. If

00:27term limits become a problem, just change your job title. Could this move

00:31mark a new stage in how entrenched leaders keep their grip? Welcome to the

00:36flipside.

00:37We just woke up one morning and we have been informed that the Constitution is going to change.

00:44We will not have the right to choose our president directly anymore and a lot of

00:50critical things that have been changed without consulting the people.

00:57The maneuver came from the family dynasty that has dominated Toghuli's politics for nearly

01:0160 years. Nassimbe Eadema Sanfore has shifted power from president to an all-powerful prime

01:08minister with no official term limits and eligible to be re-elected by parliament indefinitely.

01:15citizens who protest the move are being arrested. So now, even if the parliament is in charge,

01:21it's still the family that is in charge and the family that is in control of everything. And that

01:28is really the biggest problem because, you know, the recent riot that happened in the country was not

01:35just about the arrest of the people. It was simply because people are, you know, fed up with this

01:44family who is controlling the country for more than 50 years now.

01:49Across Africa, a handful of leaders have been in office for decades, each with their own playbook.

01:55Let's go with just two examples from the top of the list of Africa's longest-serving presidents.

02:01There's Uganda's Iweri Museveni, who came to power on the back of an armed uprising 1986,

02:08and first scrapped presidential term limits, then age limits, letting him run again and again.

02:13And there's Teodoro Obiang-Goema of Equatorial Guinea, who overthrew his dictator uncle in 1979,

02:21and went on to become notorious for consistently winning elections by 90% or more,

02:27amid intimidation and restricted opposition. Togo's current shift, however, is about reinventing the job.

02:34Foreg Nasimbe just steps over the problem constitutionally. No elections, no term limit,

02:40no problem. And that, even though both the African Union and ECOWAS, of which Togo has membership,

02:47have established frameworks prohibiting exactly that.

02:50When you look at what the Togolese have done, they violate the spirit of the African Charter on

02:58democracy, election and governance. They also violated the spirit of the ECOWAS protocol on good governance.

03:09But what do people in Togo's capital, Lomé, think about Nasimbe's maneuver?

03:13If you were teaching Keaum army warfare, you see that I can stop?

03:16And the

03:20They are teaching people, this we teach the spirit of the tension that I hold on,

03:23and it really matters the way.

03:25And as you say,

03:27it's a complicated question,

03:29your father is you.

03:32This is like a function that things are,

03:35you, you, you, for Корne,

03:37that's part of the lavorant

03:39and the recovery of it.

03:41It's quite personal.

03:43The changement of the constitution...

03:45Well...

03:46It's crazy for me.

03:48The 6th Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic,

03:50the 6th Republic of the Republic of the Republic of the Republic,

03:51it's crazy.

03:52The essential thing is that the Tegolais,

03:54when they come out, they come back with the benefits,

03:57and not with the debts.

03:59Already, he was the President of the Republic.

04:02The President of the Republic,

04:04who became the President of the Council,

04:07it was practically the same nomination.

04:10And there's nothing to say about that.

04:15It's always him who governs.

04:17The ministers will always be under his tutel.

04:23The role they can play as a President,

04:26is the same thing they can do as a President of the Council.

04:31The essential thing for the Tegolais,

04:34as a young man, is to create jobs.

04:38Neither members of the Commonwealth, nor fellow leaders of ICWAS,

04:42have reacted to this constitutional coup.

04:45Critics say the silence could be perceived as endorsement.

04:49So, is Togo's new constitutional twist the next evolution in how African strongmen maintain their grip on power?

04:57And the fact that it will inspire other leaders to change the Constitution in order to maintain themselves in power is a worrying truth.

05:08This is a worrying trend regarding democracy, regarding the guarantees of human rights, regarding civic space,

05:16because all this is leading to a shrinking civic space,

05:21a repressed civic space where people are having less and less power to influence the way the public affairs are being run.

05:32Nasimbe's National Union for the Republic Party just secured another election victory.

05:37Is he now planning to show African leaders the way to keep an old family in power,

05:42cloaked in a new title, without messy elections and without public approval?

05:47That is the flip side.

How entrenched leaders are avoiding elections — and still remain in power

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