2024-03-26 02:37:32
Togolese deputies adopted, Monday March 25 evening, a new Constitution changing the current presidential system into a parliamentary system, now giving the power to Parliament to elect the President of the Republic.
The latter will be chosen “without debate” by parliamentarians meeting in Congress “for a single mandate of six years”, according to the new text read in the National Assembly and validated with 89 votes for, one against and one abstention. It is not known at this stage when the text will come into force. Until then, the mandate of the Togolese president, elected by direct vote, was five years, renewable once.
The change in the Constitution, proposed by a group of deputies mainly from the Union for the Republic (UNIR, in power), was adopted almost unanimously since the opposition, which had boycotted the last legislative election in 2018 and denounced “irregularities” in the electoral census, is very weakly represented in the National Assembly.
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This new Constitution also introduces a position of “president of the council of ministers” having the “full authority and power to manage the affairs of government and to be held accountable accordingly”. The president of the council of ministers is “the leader of the party or the leader of the majority coalition of parties following the legislative elections. He is appointed for a six-year term.according to the text.
Entry into the Fifth Republic
“The head of state is practically divested of his powers in favor of the president of the council of ministers, who becomes the one who represents the Togolese Republic externally, who effectively directs the country in daily management”explained Tchitchao Tchalim, president of the committee on constitutional laws, legislation and general administration at the National Assembly.
This new text must mark Togo’s entry into its Fifth Republic, the last major constitutional change dating back to 1992. It comes less than a month before the next legislative elections, which must be held on April 20 at the same time as the elections. regional meetings, in which the opposition has announced its participation.
In 2019, deputies had already revised the Constitution to limit presidential mandates to two, while resetting the counters to zero for President Faure Gnassingbé. The latter, in power since 2005, succeeded his father, Eyadéma Gnassingbé, who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly thirty-eight years.
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