Togo warms up for presidential election on February 22

By
Ewoenam Kpodo, GNA

Lome (Togo), Jan.
28, GNA – Some Togolese are upbeat about the impending presidential elections
in the country though many do not think it would be different from previous
elections, with some predicting victory for the incumbent President, Faure
Gnassingbe.

Some locals said
until the sitting President opted out of the February 22 race, no other
candidate would win.

President Gnassingbe
has been in office since 2005, following the death of his father, Gnassingbe
Eyadema who ruled Togo for 38 years after overthrowing the country’s second
president, Nicolas Grunitzky, in a coup d’état in 1967.

He won re-election
in 2010 and a third term five years later and now bidding for a fourth term.

In September 2017,
Togo’s 14-party opposition coalition rejected a government bill to restore a
two-term presidency that would not be retroactive, thus, allowing Gnassingbé to
run again in 2020 and 2025.

A tour by Ghana News
Agency (GNA) to some towns in Togo showed little signs that the election was
just weeks away with many, including those in academia unsure of the
candidature of Mr Faure Gnassingbe.

Mr Gali Agbayi,
Deputy Chairman, Segbe branch of Transport Union of Togo said, “…for the
election, I know President Gnassingbe is going again though there are issues,
but I don’t know the names and the number of people in the race with him”.

At Akato, some
residents expressed knowledge of the election, while others said though they
knew about the election, the exact date was unknown to them.

Two of those
interviewed, masons who declined disclosing their identities, said they would
not waste their time to vote because they saw the election as a mere formality
because “whether we vote or we don’t vote, we know who is winning”.

But Madam Adzo
Logoh, a waakye seller, said she would make time to vote on the day, whether it
made any change or not because that “is my civic right.”

At Akodessewa, a
commercial hub, Mr Gilbert Kossi, a businessman, said the youth especially had
“no business to do with politics but to mind their own business, to ensure they
have money to pay for rent, food, and importantly, to live in peace.”

Mr Kossi spoke of
insanitary conditions not just at Akodessewa but other parts of the country,
saying, this and other developmental challenges meant nothing to the
government, but the taxes they would get from the citizens.

Reports in Togo
media suggest that some eight persons who had declared their interests to
contest the presidential election later opted out of the race slated for next
month.

They are Mr Gerry
Taama, the 2015 Presidential candidate of the New Togolese Commitment (NET), Mr
Nicolas Lawson, the 2010 Presidential candidate of the Party of Renewal and
Redemption (PRR) and Dr. Jean-Emmanuel Gnagnon, Democratic Forces for the
Republic (FDR).

Others are Dr
Christian Spieker, the Germano-Togolese, Apostle Sodji Gabriel, founder of the
International Church of the Favoured of God, Pastor Edoh Komi of the Martin
Luther King Movement (MMLK).

Some of the
candidates renounced their candidacy claiming the current political atmosphere
was not favourable.

The remaining two,
Dovi Soter-Caius and Gamessou Kpodar renounced their candidature in order to
support Dr. Agbéyomé Kodjo, the sole opposition candidate being proposed by
Bishop Philippe Fanoko Kpodzro, an 89-year old critic of the Gnassingbe regime.

Already, some
opposition parties including the Togolese Alternative Bloc for Republican
Innovation (BATIR) have declared support for the President.

It is expected that
Togo’s Electoral Commission (CENI) will in the next few days, make public the
final list of the presidential candidates for the start of the electoral
campaign on February 06.

GNA