Lomé: Togo’s ruling party swept elections for regional council seats last month, with electoral authorities confirming President Faure Gnassingbe’s victory after winning a parallel parliamentary vote on Monday.
Legislative and regional council elections on April 29 follow constitutional reforms that opponents say will allow the Gnassingbe family to consolidate nearly six years of rule.
According to the provisional results published on Monday by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), Gnassingbe’s governing Republican party (UNIR) won 137 of the 179 regional council seats.
The opposition party won 39 seats, three independent seats.
Both elections must be approved by Togo’s courts – the legislative findings of the Constitutional Court and the regional vote by the Supreme Court.
The vote comes after a divisive constitutional change to switch Togo from a presidential to a parliamentary system, which the West African country’s opposition dismissed as an “institutional coup”.
Gnassingbe signed the new constitution on Monday, according to a presidential statement.
Power will now sit with new positions in the Council of Ministers, such as the Prime Minister, who will automatically become the leader of the party with the majority in parliament.
This means that Gnassingbe can take a new position as the head of UNIR. Under the old constitution, he could be president again in 2025.
