POLITICS-TOGO: Opposition Split as Presidential Polls Approach

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ebow Godwin

LOME, May 6 1998 (IPS) - When Togolese voters go to the polls next month to elect a new president, they will have a choice between the incumbent President Gnassingbe Eyadema and a myriad of opposition candidates.

But this split in the opposition, political observers say, will easily lead to a situation that will return Eyadema, who has been in office since 1967, to power.

Three opposition leaders — Gilchrist Olympio of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), Leopold Messan Gnininvi of the African People’s Democratic Convention (CDPA), as well as Yaovi Agboyibor of the Action Committee for Renewal (ACR) — have already declared their intentions to fight Eyadema’s ruling Rassemblemment du Peuple Togolais (RPT).

Opposition leader, Edem Kodjo, however, is urging Togo’s opposition to field a single candidate to challenge Eyadema.

“We stand a better chance if we file a single effective opposition candidate capable of winning the elections,” he told party supporters recently, after returning from France.

Kodjo is the leader of the National Congress of the Togo Union for Democracy (UTD). An economist, Kodjo’s credentials include the most sought-after job of the secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), a post he held between 1978 and 1983.

Kodjo was also the candidate for the Togo opposition coalition during the 1993 controversial presidential polls which were boycotted by the opposition. During these elections, the opposition parties also could not agree on a single candidate, and this resulted in Eyadema winning 96.5 percent of the votes.

The UTD leader warns that unless the opposition presents a single candidate this time, the vote will go once again in favour of Eyadema.

Kodjo’s decision has been welcomed by an alliance of eight opposition parties, which include his own.

Others have however refused to be lectured by Kodjo. “It is undemocratic for the opposition to field a single candidate in a multi-party dispensation,” said Agboyibor.

There is bad blood between Agboyibor and Kodjo. Agboyibor complained that he had been let down by Kodjo with whom he had entered an alliance to form a government after the 1994 parliamentary elections.

Kodjo, he claimed, had betrayed the cause of the opposition when he broke ranks to accept the post of Premiership offered by Eyadema in 1994.

Kodjo resigned from the post of Prime Minister in August 1996 after the ruling party regained its majority in parliament following by-elections in three constituencies.

Although he had resigned, the relations between Kodjo, who had won seven seats, and Agboyibor, 35 seats in the outgoing parliament, had grown from bad to worse.

Others have suggested that the plan to field a single candidate should wait until the first round of voting. “If no single candidate wins at the first ballot, then we can all come together and throw our weight behind one opposition candidate against President Eyadema,” said an opposition politician here.

Unhappy with the ongoing political bickering, observers have warned here that if the opposition refuse to unify their ranks, they would only, by their deliberate action, be enhancing Eyadema’s re-election.

Eyadema, a former sergeant in the Togolese army, toppled the elected government of Sylvanus Olympio in 1963, after accusing the later of authoritarian tendencies.

Thirty years later, Eyadema himself was forced to re-introduce multi-party democracy, following a combination of domestic and donor pressures.

In a bid to pressure Eyadema to open up the democratic process, most of Togo’s external creditors, including France, Germany, the United States and the European Union (EU) withdrew all but the most urgent economic assistance in the early 1990s.

After the multi-party elections in August 1993, which returned Eyadema to office, France led the group to resume the aid in June 1994 and by March 1995, the majority of Togo’s external creditors had resumed cooperation.

All in all, the winner of the Jun. 14 elections will have a mammoth task in Togo, a former German colony.

The new president will have to revamp Togo’s economy — with an external debt burden of about two billion US Dollars — and improve the agriculture, which accounts for more than one-third of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Weakened by the falling price of cocoa in the international market, agriculture provides a livelihood for about 70 percent of Togo’s working population.