At least five demonstrators have died while confronting official security forces in recent weeks.
But it is not the orthodox political opposition – predictably crushed in local elections last week – that has mobilised frustrated young Togolese people.
Instead, it is musicians, bloggers and activists who have tapped into popular anger and weariness with a regime that has been in power, under the leadership of Faure Gnassingbé or, before him, his father Gnassingbé Éyadéma, for almost six decades.
That outstrips even Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, 92, – who has just confirmed his intention to stand for an eighth successive term in elections later this year – or Gabon’s father-and-son presidents, Omar Bongo and Ali Bongo, the latter of whom was deposed in a coup in August 2023.
The 59-year-old holds the premiership because his Union pour la République (Unir) party dominates the national assembly – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, thanks to a constituency map gerrymandered to over-represent its northern heartlands and understate the voting weight of the pro-opposition coastal south.
Gilbert Bawara, Togo’s civil service and labour minister, maintains the 2024 election was above board, with “all the major political actors and parties” taking part.
“The government cannot be held responsible for the weakness of the opposition,” Bawara told BBC Focus on Africa TV last week.
He added that those with a genuine reason to demonstrate could do so within the law, blaming activists abroad for inciting “young people to attack security forces” in an attempt to destabilise the country.
The new constitutional framework was announced at short notice in early 2024 and quickly approved by the compliant government-dominated national assembly. There was no attempt to secure general public approval through a referendum.
A one-year transition concluded this May as Gnassingbé, who had been head of state since 2005, gave up the presidency and was installed in the premiership, a post now strengthened to hold all executive power and total authority over the armed forces.
To occupy the presidency, a role now reduced to a purely ceremonial function, legislators chose the 86-year-old former business minister, Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové.
This reshuffling of the power structure was presented abroad by regime mouthpieces as moving from a strong presidential system to a supposedly more democratic “parliamentary” model – in tune with the traditions of the Commonwealth, which Togo, like Gabon, had joined in 2022, to broaden its international connections and reduce reliance on traditional francophone links with France, the former colonial ruler.
The transition to new constitutional arrangements designed to perpetuate Gnassingbé’s rule passed off almost without outside comment from international partners whose attention is currently focused on Gaza and Ukraine rather than Africa.
