Togo and the Importance of Unmasking Dictatorship

In “People’s Power, No Dictator” Walter Rodney stated:

Men in the past have boasted of being dictators. Some have even pretended to be benevolent autocrats, ruling in the interests of those over whom they exercised absolute control. Recently, Somoza of Nicaragua went down fighting as a unrepentant dictator. But nowadays, hardly any rulers admit that they are dictators. The demand for freedom has become universal, and repression feels the need to camouflage itself.

Rodney’s words accurately describe the state of many nations around the world which are under the rule of authoritarian leaders who present themselves as benevolent and democratically elected. One such nation is Togo where Faure Gnassingbé has been president since 2005. Faure was not elected to this position. Instead, he was installed as president by the military after his father died in office.

Of course, the regime in Togo has spent nearly two decades working to ensure that the international community forgets that Faure was not elected into office in the first place. Following some pressure from ECOWAS in 2005, Togo did hold elections, but these elections were marred by the type of political violence which has been commonplace during the rule of the Gnassingbé dynasty in Togo. Since then Togo has continued to hold fraudulent elections to maintain the mask of democracy.

Despite outwardly presenting itself as a democracy, Togo is a military dictatorship in which civil liberties are routinely violated in the name of protecting the regime. It has been important for Faure to present his government as a democratic one because the regime in Togo relies on international support to keep itself in power. To acquire and sustain this international support it has been necessary to mask its true nature.

One of the important results of the protests which began in 2017 is that the mask which the regime has hid behind has begun to slip. This was demonstrated in two ways last year. The first of which was the planned Pan-African Congress which was set to be hosted in Togo. The Congress was canceled due to lack of support. This would indicate that Togo’s attempt to rebrand itself as a Pan-African government failed because the regime has been completely exposed where the wider Pan-African community is concerned. This exposure was further demonstrated by the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s decision to defer its aid to Togo until Togo improves democratic rights.

There is still much that needs to be done before democracy is restored in Togo, but an important first step in the process is to ensure that the regime in Togo cannot continue to hide behind the mask of democracy. Important steps have been made in this area. The regime in Togo can no longer successfully present itself as something which it is not. It is neither Pan-African nor democratic.