Burundi’s constitutional court on Friday ruled that the country’s newly elected leader Evariste Ndayishimiye be sworn in following the sudden death of former leader Pierre Nkurunziza earlier this week.

“No interim necessary, the president-elect… must be sworn in as soon as possible,” presidential advisor Willy Nyamitwe wrote on Twitter of the court’s announcement, which was also confirmed by the ruling party’s information secretary.

Nkurunziza, who died on Monday aged 55, had been due to step down as Burundi’s president in August after his surprise decision not to run in an election last month won by the ruling party’s handpicked successor.

Under the country’s constitution, the speaker of the National Assembly, Pascal Nyabenda, should take over in the event of the president dying.

However Nkurunziza’s sudden death put Burundi in an unusual situation, sparking rumours and fears of renewed violence in the troubled East African nation.

The council of ministers on Thursday decided to ask the constitutional court for guidance.

Iron rule

Burundi’s economy is mired in poverty and cut off by international donors after the UN documented the widespread rape, torture and murder of political opponents by ruling party activists and state security forces. 

Nkurunziza was elected by parliament as president in 2005 and re-elected in a general election in 2010.

His final years in office saw the country placed under sanctions and cut off by western donors, with Burundi ranked by the World Bank as one of the world’s three poorest countries.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

Burundi’s election commission is expected Monday to declare Evariste Ndayishimiye the country’s next president, with all signs showing the ruling party’s candidate on track for victory following last week’s poll.

The National Independent Electoral Commission will unveil the outcome of the presidential and legislative races at 1200 GMT.

Local government results are also expected Monday.

Partial results already announced on state media indicate that Ndayishimiye, an army general from the governing CNDD-FDD who was hand-picked to succeed outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza, has an insurmountable lead over his opponents.

Agathon Rwasa, the main opposition leader, has alleged foul play, saying early numbers showing his CNL party heading for a bruising defeat are a “fantasy”.

According to a tally by AFP covering 105 of 119 municipalities, Ndayishimiye won an outright majority in 101, and in at least one secured 99.9 percent of the vote.

In the four communes where he was defeated, Ndayishimiye attracted a support rate of no less than 43 percent.

Rwasa and his CNL, meanwhile, managed just 24.6 percent in Kabezi, a historic stronghold in western Bujumbura for the opposition party, which says some of its officials were harassed and detained on voting day.

The veteran politician attracted large crowds throughout his campaign, as did the ruling party, despite concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

– Results questions –

Analysts predicted the presidential race would come down to a contest between Rwasa and Ndayishimiye, the strongest of seven candidates.

A foreign diplomat in Burundi, speaking anonymously, expressed strong doubts about the official result but said it was not surprising.

“We were expecting it to happen like this. Nobody could imagine for a second that the CNDD-FDD and its generals would cede power in any way,” the diplomat said.

Burundi, which the World Bank ranks among the world’s three poorest countries, has been under sanctions from its major donors since 2015, when Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term as president triggered violent unrest and political chaos.

At least 1,200 people have died and 400,000 have fled the country in violence that continues to this day.

So far this year’s election has not seen a repeat of that violence.

Rwasa has already hinted he would not take to the streets in protest and would appeal to the Constitutional Court, though he considers the process imperfect.

Tensions were high during the campaign and on voting day, when both sides accused the other of fraud and several CNL officials were arrested.

Burundi is tightly controlled by the ruling party and its youth wing, the Imbonerakure, have been accused of a forceful crackdown against the government’s critics in the aftermath of 2015.

If the election commission announces Ndayishimiye the winner as expected, he will be sworn in for a seven-year term in late August, when Nkurunziza’s term ends.

It is unclear whether Ndayishimiye would be able to rule free from interference by Nkurunziza, who in February was elevated by parliament to the rank of “supreme guide for patriotism” and will remain chairman of the party’s highly influential council of elders.

The final election results will be declared by the Constitutional Court on June 4.

Source: AFP

For years, Nigeria has been caught in the web of terrorism. Regrettably, the nation’s military, which has won many accolades at the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations and at the regional level, has not been able to restore peace especially to the North-East where the terror groups operate.

Book Haram launched a full-scale attacks on Nigeria following the killing/death of its commander, Mohammed Yusuf, in a controversial circumstance.  The dreaded Boko Haram which was regarded as a ragtag army of youths has continued to give the Nigerian military as well as the military of some neighbouring nations a serious headache, killing scores of troops and carting away their weapons on some occasions.

Although the insurgents have also had many casualties, their ability to recruit more fighters, resilience, arms cache and capability to get intelligence reports, which they often deploy in attacking the soldiers, have been worrisome despite many claims that they have been technically defeated.

The terrorists   became very emboldened before the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), came to power in 2015 to the extent that the United Nations Office in Abuja was bombed while the Police headquarters was also bombarded, among other places.

However, the devious attacks were not limited to Nigeria as the terror group also carried out attacks in Chad, Niger and Cameroon. These deadly attacks and the push by the insurgents to establish their government in these countries accounted for the reorganisation of the Multi-National Joint Task Force in 2015.

This was why the headquarters of the regional force was moved from Baga, Borno State, to N’Djamena, Chad Republic, and their mandate was to end the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin.

Despite the reorganisation, the terrorists have continued to carry out attacks especially on military bases just to show that their alleged ‘technical defeat’ as claimed by the Federal Government was a ruse.

In March, Boko Haram inflicted a heavy blow on the Nigerian military by killing about 47 troops in a deadly ambush while the troops were moving around Alagarno in Yobe State.

The insurgents also killed 92 Chadian troops when they carried out an attack on a base in Bohoma, Chad. The attack is still being regarded as the worst military loss in the history of Chad.

Infuriated by the heavy defeat, the Chadian President, Idriss Deby, vowed that Chadian troops would deal with the insurgents. A few days after and in a surprise move, he actualised the threat as his troops launched a full-scale attack on the stronghold of Boko Haram killing hundreds of them and taking control of their arms store.

However, after the onslaught, the president who is a retired military officer, was quoted by Aljazeera as saying that Chad would no longer be part of any regional force in the Lake Chad region and the Sahel.

 He said, “Our troops have died for Lake Chad and the Sahel. From today, no Chadian soldier will take part in a military mission outside Chad. Chad is alone in shouldering all the burden of the war against Boko Haram.” But the Nigerian military downplayed the statement, saying Chad had not pulled out of the regional force.

Nonetheless, investigations by our correspondents revealed that rivalry, lack of commitment and underfunding of the regional force were some of the reasons the MNJTF had not been able to defeat the insurgents completely.

Military sources noted that some of these reasons were also responsible for the inability of the Nigerian armed forces to end the Boko Haram terrorism within the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa since 2009.

A top military source in Borno, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said chief among the reasons for the slowdown over the years was an unwritten rivalry and controversy over funding among the countries, with Nigeria and Chad in the forefront.

The source said, “When the MNJTF was in Baga, Borno State, between 2009 and 2015, Nigeria provided much of the funding and supplied the most troops with little or no contributions from the three other countries. Nigeria still does. But then, the Boko Haram struck Baga and ruined the MNJTF headquarters in one of the most devastating attacks of that year on our troops.

“There was suspicion that the attack on Baga came because of unspoken bitterness from the other countries. So, the headquarters was moved to Chad in 2015. Yet, it was agreed that a Nigerian officer would be the Force Commander, a Cameroonian as a Deputy Commander and a Chadian as the Chief of Staff. Again, the Commander position was not rotational and this is another problem.

“It is difficult, even if I become the commander, to get the allegiance of the Chadian troops, where the MNJTF is headquartered, to commit more to the MNJTF than to their nation. They will naturally owe allegiance first to their army chief and the President than to a Nigerian commander. Chad just feels they are not in charge and that in a way affects the military cooperation.”

Despite operating from Chad and being a regional force, the choice of who becomes the MNJTF commander has always been done almost solely by the Nigerian Chief of Army Staff (currently Lt Gen Tukur Buratai), whom military sources believe should not be making such decision without the input of other army chiefs in the joint military force.

In the latest appointment in November 2019, Buratai in a press release named Maj Gen Ibrahim Yusuf as the MNJTF commander, replacing Maj Gen Chikeze Ude, the hitherto head of the force.

“This kind of choice of the MNJTF leadership is very faulty, if you ask me. The four countries have Chiefs of Defence Staff and at worst, the Nigerian Chief of Defence Staff is supposed to make such appointment and seek approval from the other three countries’ heads of military to show they are in the decision making channel,” a captain in the Nigerian Army explained.

It was not surprising therefore when Chad, in the first week of April 2020, hinted that it might no longer be taking part in any regional force. Although the announcement looked unclear as it houses the MNJTF, the Chadian president lamented that the country’s troops had died in droves for Lake Chad and the Sahel and they might no longer be taking part in a military mission outside his country.

Analysts believe that the message was subtly targeted at Nigeria to show that Chad wanted some more leverage in the force, than for its troops to await orders from Nigerian commanders.

It was learnt that Niger Republic and Cameroon were not in contention for such prominence in the MNJTF with their troops not being able to stop the terrorists from coming into their respective territories, most times after escaping heat from Nigeria and Chad.

“The funding of the MNJTF has therefore been a major challenge, with most resources lopsided and coming from Nigeria and Chad, which again limits the penetration of the regional force into the two other countries,” a top military source in Abuja said.

On April 10, 2020, the operations of the MNJTF were reviewed at the Ministry of Defence building in Abuja, but only the Ministers of Defence from Nigeria and Chad, Maj Gen Bashir Magashi (retd.), and Mahamat Salah, respectively were at that meeting where tactical decisions were taken.

The Chadian defence minister had come to Abuja to review the MNJTF. He came in company with the Chief of Staff to the Chadian President, the Chadian Ambassador to Nigeria and the Chadian Director of Military Cooperation.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram has managed to keep its fangs alive in the Lake Chad region, partly due to the emergence of its deadlier faction, the Islamic State West African Province, and the recruitment and indoctrination of thousands of youths across the four countries to fight in the sect under the guise of religious and ideological war.

On April 27, the MNJTF itself raised the alarm that it had obtained information regarding a plot by the insurgents to carry out an “aggressive recruitment in the coming weeks.” It said the forced recruitment was expected to target young and adult males. However, the sect’s backup plan was to kidnap unwilling targets.

The MNJTF Chief of Military Public Information, Col Timothy Antigha, therefore urged youths in the North-Eastern states of Nigeria, Lake Province of Chad, Diffa Region of Niger and Extreme North Region of Cameroon to be vigilant and shun all promises of opportunities for quick money and misguided teachings about jihad.

On the whole, military sources agree that the MNJTF needs to first win the confidence and trust of its four member countries and their armed forces before tangible successes can be recorded against the Boko Haram and its affiliates.

A former Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Prof Bola Akinterinwa, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, identified poor funding, poor equipment and logistical problems as some of the factors incapacitating the MNJTF.

Akinterinwa said the MNJTF was established in the 1990s for economic reasons but its mandate was changed to security when it was reorganised.

He said, “You know the countries funding the MNJTF but you don’t know the financiers of the Boko Haram. I will like to remind you of what late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya said and what a former President of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, also said and you will know why the task will be very difficult for any joint task force whether national or multinational.

“Gaddafi made it abundantly clear that Nigeria could not have peace unless the country was divided into Muslim North and Christian South. Now the Boko Haram wants to establish an Islamic State particularly in the North.

“In this case, the powerful Muslim states appear to be funding them, aiding and abetting them. Nobody is talking about which countries are involved but accusing finger is pointing at Iran for supporting the Shiite; accusing fingers are pointing at Saudi Arabia and other countries. But the issue is that Boko Haram cannot have the kind of sophisticated weapons they are using if they are not being supplied from outside the country.

“In this case, when you have an opposition like Boko Haram that is heavily funded and equipped fighting against the MNJTF that is poorly equipped, how can they succeed?

“Also, some Nigerians went to protest at the French Embassy in Abuja accusing France of aiding and abetting Boko Haram. Jerry Rawling said the solution to Nigeria problems was to kick out all new-colonialist leaders in Nigeria. When you look at this also, you will see that it is very difficult for the joint task force because there may be colonial support for Boko Haram as well. This is a fundamental issue.

“Multi-national joint task force means the troops there are from different countries with different cultures. They do not use the same type of weapons and their military training and doctrines are not the same. Yet they are brought together under one commander who is expected to harmonise their activities. In terms of signal and strategies, they may not be the same. There is logistical problem and above all who is the leader? “

A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, said in February at the first public lecture in honour of the late founder of Oodu’a Peoples Congress, Dr Fredrick Fasehun, that Nigeria had not been able to defeat Boko Haram because the terror group was getting support from outside. He, however, did not reveal where the external support for the jihadists was coming from.

But, a fellow of the International Institute of Professional Security, Mr Jackson Ojo, in an interview with Sunday PUNCH, said despite the fact that the terror group’s activities affected Nigeria more than the other three nations in the region, Nigeria had been lackadaisical in its approach to the force.

Ojo said, “There is a lot of unserious mess on the side of Nigeria despite the fact the counrty can be regarded as the epicentre of Boko Haram activities. Apart from this, I believe there are many saboteurs in Nigeria and even in the military. Boko Haram has a lot of sympathisers even among those in government. Some are sympathetic to the group based on ethnic, religious or just emotional sympathy.

“Boko Haram fighters do not fly to their bases, they come through our land borders with their supplies and security agents are supposed to be there. Nigeria has not queried that. These are some of the signs that we are not very serious about it. Our Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai, just relocated to the North-East after the Chadian troops led by their President had routed the Boko Haram in an offensive battle.”

Proffering solution to the challenges, Akinterinwa said the MNJTF should re-strategise to end the insurgency. He explained that the troops of all the countries in the regional force should fix a particular day and a particular time of the day and encircle the whole area where “the Boko Haram fighters are and advance.”

He said with this, they would be able to neutralise the insurgents and there would be no need for the Joint Task Force to continue to play preventive role.

Culled from PUNCH

Guillaume Soro, the former rebel leader running for president in Ivory Coast, was convicted in absentia on Tuesday of embezzlement and sentenced to 20 years in prison for embezzlement. The former prime minister, who is in exile in France, has denied the charges claiming they are politically motivated.

The verdict, announced after a trial in Ivory Coast that lasted only a few hours and was boycotted by Soro’s lawyers, is likely to exclude Soro from October’s election, when President Alassane Ouattara is due to step down.

Prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Soro in December for allegedly plotting a coup against his former ally Ouattara’s government and stealing public funds.

Soro, who has been living in Europe, diverted his plane in the air instead of returning home in December to Ivory Coast  — where he planned to launch his campaign — when it became clear that Ivorian authorities had issued an arrest warrant for him.

Soro has denied the charges, which he says are intended to prevent him from challenging Ouattara’s preferred successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, in the election.

In an interview with a French weekly in December, Soro vowed to lead the “resistance” from abroad “like de Gaulle,” referring to the French wartime resistance leader.

‘Thunderbolt in the sky of Ivorian corruption’

The Abidjan court fined him nearly seven million euros ($7.6 million), ordered the confiscation of his Abidjan home and barred him from civic duties for five years.

The court issued a fresh arrest warrant against him, in effect barring him from contesting elections, and ordered him to pay three million euros in damages and interest to the state.

Soro helped Ouattara to power in 2010 amid political violence that cost 3,000 lives, later serving as premier and then parliamentary speaker.

After falling out with Ouattara, he launched an unsuccessful bid to become president last year.

Government lawyer Ben Meite Abdoulaye dismissed suggestions the verdict was political, calling it a “thunderbolt in the sky of Ivorian corruption”.

“This decision is the start of a new era in Ivory Coast. We must hunt down corruption wherever it is found,” he said.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights had recently ordered Ivory Coast to suspend an arrest warrant against Soro, who had taken his case to a Tanzania-based court last month.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

Acts of intimidation and allegations of vote buying marred the final round of legislative elections in Mali on Sunday aimed at reviving confidence in embattled institutions despite a bloody jihadist conflict and a virus pandemic.

In central Mali, the president of a voting station was forcibly removed and representatives of the electoral commission “chased away by armed men”, one of the representatives told AFP.

Military sources confirmed the incident.

Elsewhere, voting was cancelled after jihadists threatened to attack voters, witnesses said.

Already on Saturday, unknown assailants had destroyed voting equipment in northern Mali.

And on Sunday, observer umbrella group Synergie said there had been many incidents of vote buying at several voting stations.

The first provisional results are to be announced at the start of the week.

The election had been repeatedly delayed, and the first round on March 29 was disrupted by jihadist attacks as well as the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaila Cisse.

‘Consolidate our democracy’

“I voted. It is important despite the economic situation. We need new MPs to consolidate our democracy,” Moussa Diakite, a 23-year-old student, told AFP.

Another student, Hamchetou Toure, said she wore a face mask and observed social distancing rules as she voted in the semi-desert country, which has so far recorded 216 cases of the virus including 13 deaths.

Among the measures taken by the government are a night-time curfew, school closures and restrictions on some activities — but people still filled markets, mosques and public transport.

The Synergie said anti-virus protection kits had been distributed to over 96 percent of polling stations that it visited across the former French colony.

It said poll workers wore masks in over 87 percent of the stations visited.

Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries, is struggling with an Islamist revolt that has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Sunday’s runoff in the West African nation of 19 million people is for 147 seats in the National Assembly.

Voting took place in the capital as well as the troubled central town of Mopti and Gao in the north, according to residents.

Delays

It was the country’s first parliamentary poll since 2013 when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s Rally for Mali party won a big majority.

Turnout in the first round averaged over 35 percent nationwide but was less than 13 percent in the capital Bamako.

On Sunday’s second-round vote, turnout was 23.2 percent, according to Synergie, which had dispatched election observers.

The election had been meant to take place in late 2018 after Keita was returned to office but was postponed several times, mainly because of security concerns.

A “national dialogue” staged last year to discuss Mali’s spiral of violence called for the ballot to be completed by May.

The hope is that the new MPs will endorse changes to the constitution that will promote decentralisation.

That is the key to pushing ahead with the government’s plans for peace. It signed a deal with armed separatists in northern Mali in 2015 but the pact has largely stalled.

Violence in that region began in 2012 and was then fanned by jihadists.

Defying thousands of French and UN troops, the jihadists took their campaign into the centre of the country and now threaten neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Mali’s conflict zones and poor healthcare infrastructure place it in the category of countries that health experts say are at high risk of coronavirus.

Keita, addressing the nation wearing a face mask, said “every health and security” precaution would be “rigorously applied” during Sunday’s vote.

(AFP)

Ivory Coast’s ruling party has named the prime minister as its candidate for the October presidential poll, after President Alassane Ouattara ended months of speculation and said he would not seek a controversial third term.

The choice of Amadou Gon Coulibaly, a close friend and confidant of the president, comes ahead of a challenging election for the West African country — the world’s top cocoa producer and home to more than 25 million people.

A 2010 vote ended in violence between rival political factions which left 3,000 people dead.

“I am aware of the magnitude of the responsibility and the magnitude of the burden,” Coulibaly said after being nominated late Thursday by the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace, or RHDP.

“I have appealed to all my sisters and brothers to be united,” he added. “We must win these elections in the first round.”

The constitution allows only two presidential terms, but Ouattara, 78, had said he would be able to stand due to a constitutional change in 2016 — a claim rejected by the opposition.

Analysts say it was essential to announce Ouattara’s choice of candidate quickly.

“The RHDP has stepped up the tempo to give Amadou Gon Coulibaly time to campaign and be visible,” said political scientist Jean Alabro.

“From the moment Ouattara was no longer a candidate, he had to readjust the strategy in order to mobilise around the new leader, and to remove any hint of another candidate,” added political scientist Arthur Banga.

– In president’s shadow –

While the choice of Coulibaly was not unexpected, the announcement — made without a vote and a week after Ouattara ruled out running in the October 31 race — came as a surprise.

The 61-year-old has spent his career in the shadow of the president.

“I’ve been learning alongside President Alassane Ouattara for 30 years,” he said Thursday.

He was the president’s secretary general from the time Ouattara came to power in 2010 until his appointment as prime minister in 2017.

Before that he was a senior civil servant and minister of agriculture. He was trained in France and, like Ouattara, has a good grasp of international finance.

“If we want our country to continue to evolve in the spirit of (Ouattara’s) governance, Gon (Coulibaly) is best placed,” said Hamed Bakayoko, the defence minister.

Coulibaly is from a large family in the country’s north and is very influential among traditional chiefs. He was mayor of Ivory Coast’s fourth-largest city, Korhogo, from 2001 to 2018.

Ouattara had kept Ivorians guessing over his political future, saying last year that he could run again if his traditional rivals were candidates.

Since the death of founding President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, Ivory Coast politics have been dominated by three men: Henri Konan Bedie, Laurent Gbagbo and Ouattara.

Gbagbo, who refused to step down after losing elections in 2010, was acquitted by the International Criminal Court last year on charges relating to the unrest triggered by his bid to cling on to power.

Bedie, who will be 86 during the October election, has not ruled out running.

Source:  AFP

Guinea’s President Alpha Conde announced a “slight postponement” of Sunday’s referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution, following mounting international criticism over the poll’s fairness.

The government argues that the draft constitution would, among other things, codify gender equality and ban female circumcision and underage marriage in the West African state.

But the proposal has sparked huge protests since October over fears that the real motive is to reset presidential term limits — allowing Conde, 81, to run for a third spell in office later this year.

Speaking on national television, the president said on Friday it was “due to our national and regional responsibilities that we have accepted a slight postponement of the date of the elections”.

“This is not a capitulation or a step backwards,” he said, adding that “the people of Guinea will express their choice freely at the referendum”.

While Conde did not publicly announce a date for the new vote, a letter from the leader to the West African bloc ECOWAS, seen by AFP, said the new poll should take place within two weeks.

The poll had been scheduled for Sunday alongside parliamentary elections — also delayed in the poor but mineral-rich country of some 13 million people, which has a legacy of autocratic rule.

The long-running demonstrations over the constitution issue have sometimes turned violent, with at least 30 protesters and one gendarme killed to date.

Conde’s announcement followed criticism of the electoral process from the African Union, European Union and The International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), which gathers French-speaking states.

The OIF said this week it had problems with around 2.5 million of the 7.7 million names on the electoral roll, pointing to duplicate registrations and people who had died.

The African Union also cancelled an electoral observation mission to Guinea on Friday, citing a “major controversy” with the roll.

Meanwhile the EU said in a statement that a “lack of inclusiveness and transparency casts doubt on the credibility of the upcoming elections”.

Quiet streets

Sekou Conde, a cadre in the president’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party, said the vote had been postponed purely for technical reasons.

“It has nothing to do with the electoral roll,” he said, adding that people had ransacked voting stations.

A Western diplomat, who declined to be named, said he thought the delay would make no difference anyway.

“This changes nothing,” he said, adding that there would be no credible change to the problems with the electoral roll within two weeks.

The streets of the capital Conakry were quiet on Friday evening after the announcement, despite months of protests.

Ibrahima Diallo, the operations manager for the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution — an alliance of opposition groups behind the protests — said that demonstrations would continue until Conde shelved the referendum.

Although both the current constitution and the proposed new text limit presidential terms to two, critics fear that passing a new constitution would reset presidential term limits to zero.

This would potentially allow Conde to run again when his second term runs out at the end of the year.

Conde was a longtime opposition figure who became the nation’s first democratically elected president in 2010 on promises to fight corruption. He was re-elected in 2015.

Source: AFP

Togolese president Faure Gnassingbé has won a fourth term in office, according to provisional results declared by the national election commission.

On Monday, the commission said he won 72 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential election.

“Based on all the data obtained from the local independent electoral commission and the independent embassy electoral commissions, the candidate of the Union for the Republic (UNIR) party, Mr. Gnassingbé Essozimna Faure is provisionally proclaimed elected president of the Togolese Republic”, Kodjona Kandaga, President of the National Electoral Commission said

According to the Togolese electoral commission, former Prime Minister, Agbeyome Kodjo, who served under the regime of Gnassingbé Eyadema, came in second with just 18 percent of votes on Saturday.

This widely anticipated win for the 53 year old extends the dynasty of the Gnassingbé‘s of the former French colony for more than a century.

Gnassingbé has led the country of 8 million people since he took over in 2005. This follows the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadema, who ruled the West African nation for 38 years.

The main opponent, Agbeyome Kodjo, who claimed victory after Saturday votes denounced vote irregularities in the capital, Lome.

AFP

Polling stations opened on Saturday morning in Togo where voters will choose their president in a ballot without much suspense as incumbent Faure Gnassingbé is expected to win a fourth term in office in the face of divided opposition.

Some 3.6 million voters are being called to the polls until 4 p.m. (1600 GMT) in some 9,000 polling stations across the country, but many of them have already announced that they want to boycott a poll they consider neither free nor transparent.

In Lomé, in the sandy courtyard of the Kodjoviakope high school where Jean-Pierre Fabre, the historic leader of the opposition, is expected to vote today, Eric, a driver in his thirties, arrived before 7 a.m. (local and GMT) to make sure he put his ballot in the ballot box before leaving for work.

“We are suffering too much in Togo, this time it has to change. I won’t tell you who I’m going to vote for but this time we don’t want to be robbed of victory,” he told AFP, adding that he would return to “watch the counting” in the evening.

In another office in the capital, Balakébawi Agbang, a supporter of Unir, the ruling party, invited his fellow citizens to “go out en masse to make the right choice”. “I voted for continuity, to allow Faure to continue the work he had started,” he said.

“The head of state’s supporters, recognizable by their sky blue T-shirts and caps, have continued to chant their main slogan in the streets of Lomé over the past few days to win the election in the first round.

The results are expected at the start of the week, according to sources in the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni).

Seven Presidential candidates

Faure Gnassingbé, whose family has been at the head of this West African country for 53 years, is not expected to face any major obstacles to his re-election, having already won three elections contested by the opposition and civil society in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

He faces six other candidates, including historic opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre of the National Alliance for Change (ANC) and former Prime Minister Agbéyomé Kodjo, who could be an outsider despite his profile as a man of the seraglio.

The president can boast of a rather positive economic record, with stable growth of 5%, but his critics denounce authoritarian governance and the corruption of his entourage when half the population lives below the extreme poverty line, with less than $1.90 a day.

Togo also experienced a serious political crisis in 2017 and 2018 with monster demonstrations demanding the resignation of the president, but Parliament finally approved a constitutional amendment allowing him to stand for re-election in 2020 and 2025.

The opposition coalition, the C14, which led the protests, did not survive this failure and its leaders are therefore presenting themselves in a divided front for the vote.

Opposition candidates have warned, however, that they will unite to block Faure Gnassingbé in the event of a second round, but this scenario seems rather unlikely.

Defiant opposition

In the streets of Lomé, Sokodé (centre) and Dapaong (north), many said they were “disappointed” by the opposition and warned they would not vote.

Several opposition parties decided to boycott the elections and the lack of popular support dominated the entire campaign.

This week, 500 civil society observers lost their accreditation, accused of interfering in the electoral process, in addition to the 9,000 observers from the Episcopal Council for Justice and Peace who were also not allowed to monitor the vote.

David Dosseh of the Front citoyen Togo debout (FCTD), who accused the authorities of organising an election “behind closed doors”.

The president of Ceni, Tchambakou Ayassor, also announced on Thursday “the cancellation of the system of electronic security of voting results” which should be done through a software called “SINCERE”, fuelling doubts and speculation on the holding of a free and transparent election.

Some 315 international observers, mainly from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), will however be present, even if the outgoing president is supported by many of his African peers.

France, a former colonial power, a traditional ally of the Gnassingbé dynasty and present in the neighbouring Sahel in the fight against jihadist movements, is particularly sensitive to Togo’s stability in this volatile region.

Source: Africa News

South Sudan President Salva Kiir will on Friday formally appoint rebel leader Riek Machar as vice president, ahead of a swearing-in ceremony on Saturday, the information minister said.

Kiir had initially said his longtime rival would be sworn-in on Friday, after the two men finally agreed to form a long-delayed unity government — a crucial step towards ending more than six years of war.

However Information Minister Michael Makuei told AFP that the oath had been pushed back to Saturday.

“Today (Friday) his excellency the president will issue a presidential decree for the appointment of the vice presidents and the dissolution of all institutions at national and state levels,” he said.

Machar is to be the first of five vice-presidents in a bloated cabinet to accommodate various warring parties.

But aside from Machar, consensus has only been reached on three other deputies.

“The vice presidents will take oath tomorrow and thereafter we will continue to process the appointments of the cabinet and appointment of the governors of the 10 states and three chief administrators of the three administrative areas,” said Makuei.

Saturday is the third deadline for the formation of the unity government which was agreed upon in a September 2018 peace deal, but pushed back as crucial issues had yet to be dealt with.

Key among these were the delineation of state boundaries, formation of a unified national army and security arrangements for Machar, who has been living in exile since 2016.

A last-minute deal on the number of states was achieved, although little progress has been made on the other issues.

The leaders have come under increased pressure in recent weeks both from regional heads of state and main donor, the United States, to form the government.

A compromise by Kiir to cut to 10 the number of states, which he increased unilaterally to 32 after independence, was seen as key in moving towards the creation of the government.

However the opposition remains reticent about an additional three “administrative areas” pushed through by Kiir.

Machar spokesman Manawa Peter Gatkuoth said the two men would “continue to solve the problem” after the government is formed.

“This is a major step forward, if indeed they form the government as they say,” Alan Boswell, a South Sudan expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG) told AFP.

“Kiir’s compromise on the states issue paved the way for the two sides to finally move forward, even if the parties have much more to work through in the coming weeks, months, and years.”

Several heads of state are expected to attend the inauguration, although no names have been confirmed.

Source:  AFP