Togo, officially the Togolese Republic, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It is one of the least developed countries and extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its capital, Lomé, is located. It is a small, tropical country, which covers 56,785 square kilometres and has a population of approximately 8 million, and has a width of less than 115 km (71 mi) between Ghana and its eastern neighbor Benin.
The history of Togo can be traced to archaeological finds which indicate that ancient local tribes were able to produce pottery and process tin. During the period from the 11th century to the 16th century, the Ewé, the Mina, the Gun, and various other tribes entered the region. Most of them settled in coastal areas. The Portuguese arrived in the late 15th century, followed by other European powers. Until the 19th century, the coastal region was a major slave trade centre, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast".
Politics of Togo takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Togo is both head of state and head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and parliament. After independence, the party system was dominated first by the authoritarian Rally for the Togolese People, and later by its successor party, Union for the Republic.
Gnassingbé Eyadéma was a Togolese military officer and politician who was the president of Togo from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was immediately succeeded by his son, Faure Gnassingbé.
Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé Eyadéma is a Togolese politician who has been the president of Togo since 2005. Before assuming the presidency, he was appointed by his father, President Gnassingbé Eyadéma, as Minister of Equipment, Mines, Posts, and Telecommunications, serving from 2003 to 2005.
Presidential elections were held in Togo on 24 April 2005, following the death in office of long-time president Gnassingbé Eyadéma. The main candidates were Eyadéma's son, Faure Gnassingbé, and opposition leader Emmanuel Bob-Akitani. The elections and the preceding period were marked by violence, with many people reported killed in various incidents. According to the official results, Gnassingbé won the election, taking slightly more than 60% of the vote. Violence flared in the capital Lomé after the results were announced, and thousands fled into neighboring countries.
Fambaré Ouattara Natchaba was a Togolese politician. He was the President of the National Assembly of Togo from September 2000 to February 2005. He was a prominent member of the ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) and a member of the Pan-African Parliament representing Togo.
Messan Agbéyomé Gabriel Kodjo is a Togolese politician who served as Prime Minister of Togo from 29 August 2000 to 27 June 2002.
Claude Henri Améganvi is a Togolese Trotskyist and former political prisoner. An architect by training, in 1977 he joined the exile student movement in France in opposition to the one-party dictatorship of Gnassingbé Eyadéma. He helped found the Organisation of Togolese Workers for Democracy (OTTD) in 1988. He returned to Togo in 1991 during a period of political liberalisation and was a delegate to the National Conference and subsequently the High Council of the Republic. In December 1991 he went into exile again, this time in Benin, until 1997. At the foundation of the Workers' Party (PT) in 1998, Améganvi was selected national coordinator. He remained a strong critic of the regimes of Eyadéma and his son Faure Gnassingbé. In September 2002, he was sentenced to four months in prison for defamation; he allegedly provided a Togolese newspaper the unsubstantiated claim that Forbes magazine had named President Eyadéma one of the world's wealthiest people. The sentence was increased to six months, and Améganvi was released in February 2003.
Kpatcha Gnassingbé is a Togolese politician. He is a son of Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who was President of Togo from 1967 to 2005, and a brother of Faure Gnassingbé, who has been President since 2005. From 2005 to 2007, Kpatcha Gnassingbé was Minister of Defense. In April 2009, he was arrested on suspicion on plotting to overthrow his brother.
Presidential elections were held in Togo on 4 March 2010. Incumbent President Faure Gnassingbé—who won his first term in a presidential election that followed the death of his father, long-time President Gnassingbé Eyadema, in 2005—faced radical opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre, the Secretary-General of the Union of the Forces of Change (UFC), as well as several minor opposition candidates.
Victoire Sidémého Dzidudu Dogbé Tomegah is a Togolese politician who has served as the prime minister of Togo since 28 September 2020. She is the first woman to hold the office.
The 2017–18 Togolese protests were a significant representation of civil unrest in Togo and against the 50 year rule of the father-son combination of Gnassingbé Eyadéma and Faure Gnassingbé. The protesters demanded that the president honour the 1992 constitution, and demanding that he step down immediately. Gnassingbé offered the protesters the option of enacting the two-term limit set in the constitution effective from 2018, thus ensuring that he could stay in power until 2030. This has been rejected by the opposition. However, on 8 May 2019 the Togolese Parliament voted unanimously to accept this amendment and imposed this non-retroactive term limit on the president's office.
Protests against Faure Gnassingbé have occurred throughout Togo, starting when President Faure Gnassingbé assumed power after the death of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma in February 2005.
Presidential elections were held in Togo on 22 February 2020. Incumbent president Faure Gnassingbé of the Union for the Republic (UPR) was re-elected for his fourth term with 71% of the vote in the first round. His closest challenger was Agbéyomé Kodjo, a former prime minister and leader of the newly established Patriotic Movement for Democracy and Development, who received 19% of the vote.
The 1990–1991 Togo protests was a protest movement against then-president Gnassingbe Eyadema and his reforms. Strikes and demonstrations began by students on 5 October and soon became a daily movement which saw deaths and beatings while shootings and clashes between pro-government and anti-government demonstrators took place. Mass protests ended violently with clashes in November 1991.
The 2010–2011 Togolese protests were riots and demonstrations and strikes against the government and results of the 2010 Togolese presidential election. Protests began in March 2010. Protests saw violence against each other, stand-offs with police and brutality. As protests escalated and snowballed into a movement, more violence and crackdowns followed, with injuries and deaths reported on both sides.
The 2005 Togo protests and riots were demonstrations and rioting against the results of the presidential election and Faure Gnassingbe's takeover of power. Protests began in February with protesters demanding new elections and the end of the Gnassingbe dynasty. Around 100 were killed before the elections, but after the 2005 Togolese presidential election around 500 protesters were killed by Togolese Armed Forces, assisted by military-trained Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) militias.
Chantal Yawa Djigbodi Tségan is a Togolese politician who has been President of the country's unicameral National Assembly since January 2019.
France–Togo relations are the diplomatic relations between the French Republic and the Togolese Republic. Both nations are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and the United Nations.
