Doubts are growing in the west African country of Togo that President Gnassingbe Eyadema, in power for 36 years, will actually respect a pledge to step down in 2003.
Officially, Eyadema is duty-bound by his small country’s constitution to retire in 2003 after serving two successive five-year terms.
He has repeatedly repeated his commitment to retire, stressing respect for the constitution and declaring he wants to “rest.”
“I don’t want to talk about 2003. I spoke to you about that on July 4, 2001,” he told AFP during a recent interview at Pya, his birthplace in the north of the country.
But some voices in the highest circle close to the president say they fear a catastrophic scenario if the succession is not well-prepared. One interpretation of this sentiment is that Eyadema will in fact continue at the helm after 2003.
“He does not want this to be discussed now,” a source close to Eyadema said.
Article 59 of the constitution stipulates that the president has to be elected by universal suffrage and can serve a maximum of two terms.
Eyadema, elected in 1993 in a vote that was widely decried as fraudulent, has in fact run the west African country since 1967, when he was installed as military ruler.
He has gone on record as saying that he will back whoever the ruling Togolese People’s Assembly (RPT) party, which he founded, chooses to be his successor.
A third term will require a constitutional amendment, something that would be unacceptable to Western countries, according to diplomats in Lome.
The opposition, on the other hand is badly fractured, and cannot decide on a common leader. A prominent opposition figure Gilchrist Olympio, who lives in exile, cannot stand in the elections as the law stipulates that candidates have to live in Togo.
In the last three years, the government and split parties held a series of talks on how to hold legislative elections in line with a July 1999 accord. The elections were deferred twice and the talks ended in deadlock.
However, the situation has changed considerably in the last few months with dissent emerging, although limited, within the ruling party.
Eyadema was recently criticised by his former prime minister Agbeyome Kodjo, who was sacked in June. He issued a 14-page charge against the head of state and his family alleging a slew of misdemeanours including corruption, torture and the spiriting away of funds.
Kodjo, currently in hiding, has called for an end to Eyadema’s regime, declaring it to be “backward-looking”.
In return, Eyadema has been very dismissive of his former prime minister. “This boy represents absolutely nothing politically, I tell you. Maybe he is overworked. It’s the opposition which has manipulated him.”
However, Dahuku Pere, a former president of the national assembly and prominent RPT member, has strongly criticised the party for being intolerant and not open to change.
“Intolerance and exclusion seem to have left the ranks of the opposition to solidly entrench themselves within our ranks. When will this barbarism end?”
Responding to Pere’s criticism, Eyadema’s new Prime Minister Koffi Sama, retorted: “We don’t need him (Pere) and we haven’t been waiting for him to change the party”
In addition to the political unrest, Togo’s economy is in the doldrums, not helped by international donors such as the European Union, World Bank and International Monetary Fund cutting off aid.
The country, a former French colony that borders Ghana to the east and Benin to the west, has an external debt of some 1,45-billion euros (dollars). – AFP