By RFIPosted 30-04-2019Modified on 30-04-2019 at 17:06
In Togo, there will be many local elections this year, they will take place on June 30, announced the Independent National Electoral Commission. The last election of this kind dates from 1987.
On this occasion, the electoral register must be revised for three days from May 16 to 18. Togolese who have not registered last year will be able to do so. They will have to elect 1,527 municipal councilors from 117 municipalities in the country.
Elections postponed, hardening of the regime
Dates have been announced several times, but the elections have been repeatedly postponed. The last time was in 2018. The local elections had to be coupled with the legislative elections, they did not take place for thirty-two years.
In 1992, the year in which local elections were to be organized, political unrest is very important, the opposition is repressed. This is the year of the general strike that will last eight months. And there is a hardening of Eyadema's diet.
In this context, the power has paled to the hurry. Instead of mayors whose five-year term had expired, special delegations were appointed by the head of state. These delegations had to organize elections in the communes but they will never take place.
Census
The opposition reacts to this announcement: a firm date is certainly an important element. There remain the conditions under which this election will be organized. Opposition parties point out in particular the risk of fraud but also the shortcomings of the electoral register, which must be reviewed.
But three days for an enumeration, it is short, one points in the ranks of the opposition, where one fears that this delay does not penalize the voters of opposition after the boycott of the legislative ones of last December.
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