Togo Readies for Turmoil

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Togo’s opposition mobilizes to protest an election delay, Senegal’s new president debuts his cabinet, and Zimbabwe returns to the gold standard—for now.

Togo Rewrites Constitution, Postponing Elections

Last week, Togo postponed legislative elections that had been scheduled for April 20, following a contentious constitutional reform. The office of President Faure Gnassingbé said more “consultations” over the changes were needed before a new election date could be announced.

On March 25, Togo’s National Assembly adopted a charter that will transform the country from a presidential to a parliamentary system. Executive power will lie with a “president of the council of ministers,” effectively a prime minister, while Togo’s existing presidency will be reduced to a ceremonial role. The National Assembly will elect the president to a single six-year term, abolishing direct elections.

Togo’s opposition argues that the reforms are a ploy to keep the unpopular Gnassingbé in power, avoiding being voted out by a public weary of presidents serving for life. “He was never elected … and he knows that the Togolese people are lying in wait for him in the next election,” opposition politician Brigitte Adjamagbo-Johnson told Radio France Internationale.

Togo gained independence from France in 1960 and has been largely run by the Gnassingbé family since. Gnassingbé’s father seized power in a 1967 military coup, and the younger Gnassingbé succeeded him in 2005 after his death in office. He’s served four terms since then—which was possible because in 2002, the constitution had been amended to abolish a two-term limit and allow the elder Gnassingbé to stand again.

Allegations of fraud have surrounded previous elections in Togo, and Gnassingbé’s opponents have often faced state intimidation or arrest. The capital, Lomé, experienced nearly a year and half of protests between 2017 and 2018, with demonstrators demanding that Gnassingbé resign. They ended only when the government agreed to reestablish a two-term limit for the presidency in a truce brokered by the Economic Community of West African States.

However, in 2019, Togo’s parliament did not apply the law to the younger Gnassingbé, who had his term bank reset so he could run in presidential elections in 2020 and 2025, conceivably staying in power until 2031. With this year’s constitutional reform, Gnassingbé could step down from the presidency and be elected as the prime minister—a role that is not subject to term limits. Gnassingbé reportedly once recalled that “my father told me to never leave power.”

Togo’s ruling government is comprised exclusively of members of Gnassingbé’s Union for the Republic party. A group of major opposition figures boycotted the last legislative elections in 2019, claiming that the country’s electoral commission was not independent. Although many opposition members still consider Togo’s elections undemocratic, they planned to participate in the April 20 vote. Some 4.2 million Togolese were registered for the contest.

Around 100 Togolese academics and civil society groups signed an appeal last month calling on citizens to “mobilise” and reject what they perceive as Gnassingbé’s abuse of power. Members of the opposition also called for a three-day mass protest beginning this Thursday.

Meanwhile, five members of the opposition group Dynamique Monseigneur Kpodzro were arrested last week by police in Lomé after campaigning against the reform. Public prosecutor Talaka Mawama said an investigation had been launched against “individuals caught distributing leaflets and chanting slogans inciting popular revolt.”

Africa’s young generation has a renewed sense of hope following Senegal’s shock election outcome last month, in which Bassirou Diomaye Faye went from being imprisoned to being inaugurated president in under two weeks. Togolese activists believe they can also effect direct change at the ballot box. Perhaps activists in Togo can force their government to change course, too.

The Week Ahead

Wednesday, April 10, to Friday, April 12: The EU-Zambia Business Forum takes place in Kitwe, Zambia.

Saturday, April 13: Rwanda holds a ceremony to honor politicians killed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Monday, April 15: Sudan marks one year of fighting between government forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Tuesday, April 16: The United Nations Security Council discusses Libya and Western Sahara.

What We’re Watching

Rwanda-DRC conflict. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa expressed hope for a “peaceful political solution” to the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo following a closed-door meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali on Saturday. Kagame said there had been “too many actors, even some from Africa, getting directly involved” in tensions between Rwanda and the DRC.

The DRC accuses Rwanda of funding the March 23 Movement, a Congolese rebel military group that is mostly formed of ethnic Tutsis, which Kigali denies. Kagame claims that the DRC is supporting Hutu extremists who oppose Kagame’s Tutsi-dominated government. On Sunday, Rwanda marked the 30th anniversary of a genocide that saw Hutu extremists kill around 800,000 people, who were mostly ethnic Tutsis as well as some moderate Hutus and Twas.

Senegal debuts cabinet. Faye, Senegal’s new president, appointed a 25-member cabinet last Friday. Members include firebrand politician Ousmane Sonko as prime minister and Birame Souleye Diop—who was the vice president of Sonko and Faye’s now-dissolved Patriots of Senegal party—as energy minister. Faye—a former tax inspector—promised to provide young people with jobs; lower the cost of living; and review oil, gas, and mining contracts with multinational corporations.

Sonko, long considered Senegal’s leading opposition figure, tapped Faye to run for president after Sonko was barred from participating in the country’s March 24 election due to a defamation conviction. Both were released from prison on Feb. 26 following an amnesty law announced by outgoing President Macky Sall.

Somalia’s new minister. On the other end of the continent, Somalian Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre announced a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, appointing Ahmed Moallim Fiqi as foreign affairs minister. The position had been vacant since the previous foreign affairs minister, Abshir Omar Huruse, resigned to run in breakaway Puntland’s presidential elections in January—a race he lost to the Puntland to incumbent Said Abdullahi Deni.

Puntland’s government announced earlier this month that it would operate independently from Somalia’s federal government due to changes to the country’s constitution that introduced direct presidential elections instead of a long-standing clan-based indirect voting system.

Somalia is also locked in tensions with another breakaway region, Somaliland, which signed a port deal with Ethiopia in return for Addis Ababa recognizing its sovereignty.

Zimbabwe Reserve Bank Gov. John Mushayavanhu presents the country’s new ZiG (Zimbabwe gold) currency in Harare, Zimbabwe, on April 5.Photo by Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images

Zimbabwe ZiG-zags. Zimbabwe introduced a new gold-backed currency on Monday. ZiG, short for Zimbabwe gold, is the country’s sixth new currency since 2008. The Zimbabwean economy is heavily dollarized, and the U.S. dollar will continue to be legal tender there alongside the ZiG.

All of Zimbabwe’s recent currency launches have been responses to hyperinflation. The Zimbabwean dollar, the outgoing currency, had lost about 90 percent of its value since 2019. The annual inflation rate in the country climbed to 55 percent in March.

This Week in Culture

Afrobeats get U.S. backing. The U.S. State Department on March 29 announced three new platforms to invest in African music and film. The programs were initiated after a visit to Lagos, Nigeria, made last month by Lee Satterfield, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs. The platforms will provide training and networking opportunities in the United States for musicians and filmmakers in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, and Morocco.

Revenues from African music climbed more than 20 percent in 2023; the continent’s music industry is the fastest-growing in the world, according to this year’s Global Music Report. Foreign Policy previously reported that U.S. investment in the African music industry could be a key soft power tool in a region where Washington has lost influence.

Ancient auction. The world’s oldest Christian book will be auctioned on June 11 at Christie’s auction house in London. The Crosby-Schøyen Codex, a collection of texts written in Coptic script, dates to between 250 and 350 C.E. and was produced at one of the first Christian monasteries in Egypt. The manuscript’s 104 pages were written by a single scribe over a 40-year period.

The codex contains the earliest known texts of two books of the Bible—the first epistle of Peter and the Book of Jonah—as well as pagan literature. Its value is estimated at between $2.6 million and $3.8 million.

Chart of the Week

Egypt’s foreign currency reserves rose to $40.36 billion at the end of March, the highest since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At the time, investors pulled $20 billion from Cairo.

While Israel’s war against Hamas in the neighboring Gaza Strip has further undercut Egypt’s tourism industry and foreign trade, economists say the conflict has also led foreign lenders and countries to overlook Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s economic mismanagement. Cairo has benefited from its mediating role in the war—and from other countries’ hopes it could eventually take in displaced Palestinian refugees from Gaza.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• Modi’s Messenger to the World by Rishi Iyengar
• The Problem Isn’t Just Netanyahu. It’s Israeli Society. by Mairav Zonszein
• Ukraine Is Winning the War’s Other Front by Paul Hockenos

What We’re Reading

U.S.-South Africa rift. In the Financial Times, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor lambasts a proposed U.S. bill that calls for a review of bilateral relations with South Africa over its “siding with malign actors,” inferred to be China and Russia. She argues that punishing South Africa for exercising its sovereignty “amounts to self-sabotage for the US.”

Ethiopia’s Pan-Africanism. In the Republic, Kai Mora revisits Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I’s contribution to the pan-African movement of the 1960s and 70s and the steps he took to help establish the Organization of African Unity, known today as the African Union.

“For the next decade, a golden age of pan-Africanism, Selassie I would transform his diplomatic proclivities into efficient peacemaking strategies between fledging African states,” Mora writes.

Breaking Ramadan taboos. In 1962, then-Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba refused to observe the Ramadan fast on live TV by drinking a glass of orange juice. The simple sip created a rift between Tunisia’s Western-educated elite and its religious establishment. In New Lines Magazine, Ahmed Nadhif reflects on Bourguiba’s move—and its political ramifications in Tunisia and beyond.