April 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Omar Alieu Touray, approved this Tuesday the deployment of a fact-finding mission to Togo to carry out a pre-electoral evaluation ahead of the legislative and regional elections that will take place. take place on Monday, April 29, whose date has been delayed at least twice.
“The Mission will carry out a pre-electoral evaluation in accordance with the community texts and will not undertake any other process as indicated in a previous statement, which has now been withdrawn,” reads a message published by ECOWAS on its X social network account, before Twitter, also referring to a previous statement in which the deployment of an electoral mission was reported.
During their deployment, which will take place between April 15 and 20, the members of the mission will meet with the main actors in the electoral process, including leaders of state institutions and agencies and the different political parties, the electoral management body , civil society organizations and the media.
Upon completion, the mission will present a report and its recommendations to Touray so that it can “adopt appropriate decisions and measures”, which may include the deployment of an Electoral Observation Mission (EOM).
These elections were to be held in December, then they were announced for April 13 and later postponed to April 20. The latest postponement was announced after the adoption of a draft new Constitution that transforms the current presidential system into a parliamentary one, now granting the Chamber the power to elect the president.
The president of Togo, Faure Gnassingbé, succeeded his father, Gnassigbé Eyadema, in 2005, when he died after almost four decades in power. In Togo, all presidential elections organized since 1990 have been boycotted by the opposition, registering waves of violence, especially in 2005.
