Having led Togo for more than two decades, Faure Gnassingbé now confronts an increasingly complex dilemma: how can authority be retained when public confidence alone no longer secures legitimacy?
Since assuming the presidency in 2005, the Togolese head of state has navigated repeated political crises, fiercely disputed elections and sustained opposition protests. Over time, criticism has moved beyond electoral outcomes to the very conditions under which political competition is organised. For his critics, the central issue is no longer simply who wins elections but whether the existing framework genuinely permits a change of leadership.
It is against this backdrop that institutional manoeuvres must be assessed. When a political system is repeatedly reshaped around the person at its centre, every constitutional or institutional adjustment eventually prompts the same question: is the reform designed to fortify institutions, or is it another instrument for preserving the current leadership?
The matter has become even more contentious amid recent institutional changes. The shift to a new political framework, the redistribution of authority and the creation of new positions at the summit of the state have reinforced the view among critics that these moves represent not a rupture but a fresh arrangement for guaranteeing regime continuity.
The most contested aspect remains precisely this: retaining power does not always require winning an election at the ballot box. It can also be achieved by controlling the institutions that structure the exercise of authority.
This helps explain the questions raised by the failure to hold presidential elections according to the expected schedule and by the new institutional architecture that followed. For opponents, a change of mechanism does not necessarily signify a change of power. On the contrary, it could enable Faure Gnassingbé to remain at the heart of the political apparatus while altering the formal role through which he exerts influence.
The appointment of Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové to the presidency of the Republic has fuelled further controversy. Officially, this represents a new institutional arrangement. Yet for adversaries of the regime, the real question lies elsewhere: who actually holds power, and who determines the country’s major political direction?
That very question underpins the accusation that the officially installed president lacks sufficient political autonomy in relation to Faure Gnassingbé. Detractors maintain that the genuine centre of decision-making remains with the former president, now serving as president of the Council, and that the new institutional architecture has thus allowed him to preserve his influence without directly seeking a fresh mandate through a presidential election.
Although this interpretation is disputed by those in power, it does reveal a persistent democratic unease: when an institutional reform allows a leader who has already spent more than two decades at the apex of the state to remain the dominant political figure, questions about the true purpose of that reform become unavoidable.
The problem therefore extends beyond Faure Gnassingbé as an individual. It concerns the functioning of the Togolese state itself. A robust democracy should not be structured around one person’s capacity to remain indispensable; it should rest on institutions able to operate independently of the interests of the incumbent leadership.
This is compounded by recurring allegations of shrinking political space, persistent tensions with the opposition, contested elections and criticism of governance. Considered in isolation, each episode may be read differently. However, when viewed across twenty-one years of rule, they trace, in the eyes of the regime’s opponents, a single trajectory: a system seemingly less interested in preparing for alternation than in organising its own survival.
Here lies the true paradox of Faure Gnassingbé’s hold on power. After so many years at the country’s helm, the issue should no longer be how to remain in office through new institutional configurations, but how to persuade Togolese citizens in a lasting way that their choice can genuinely alter the nation’s direction.
For a democracy is not measured solely by the number of institutions it possesses or the texts it adopts. It is measured above all by the real possibility of alternation, by the independence of institutions and by the ability of citizens to sanction or renew their leaders through the ballot.
When institutional mechanisms become sufficiently complex that power can change shape without changing hands, distrust inevitably takes hold.
And that is precisely the question the Togolese authorities will not be able to evade indefinitely: if Faure Gnassingbé is truly confident that he enjoys the trust of the Togolese people, why do so many transformations appear necessary to secure the continuity of his political influence?
In essence, the Togolese debate is no longer merely about one man seeking to retain power. It is about a political system facing a straightforward demand: to finally allow citizens to determine freely, clearly and unambiguously who should govern the country.