In late June, thousands of people flooded the streets of Lomé, Togo’s capital, presenting the ruling dynasty with its biggest challenge in decades. The catalyst was President Faure Gnassingbé’s controversial transition to the new role of President of the Council of Ministers on 3 May, following constitutional amendments passed in 2024. This constitutional manoeuvre was the latest episode in a 58-year family saga that began when Faure’s father seized power in a 1967 coup. Faure Gnassingbé has been in power since 2005.

The most recent protests have been overwhelmingly led by young people who’ve never known any  other leaders than the Gnassingbés. Raised on promises of multiparty democracy, they’ve witnessed systematic electoral fraud to maintain the grip of a government wholly unresponsive to their needs. They connect their daily struggles with unemployment, power outages and crumbling infrastructure with the long-term denial of their democratic freedoms. The arrest and reported torture of popular rapper and TikToker Aamron galvanised discontent, turning simmering frustration into organised resistance.

Six decades of dynastic rule

Following the coup that brought him to power, Gnassingbé Eyadéma spent 25 years ruling over a one-party state, with his Rally of the Togolese People the sole legal political organisation. Ritual voting ceremonies provided the authoritarian regime with a facade of legitimacy. This reached absurd heights in 1986, when Eyadéma was re-elected with supposedly close to 100 per cent of the vote on an implausible 99 per cent turnout.

A 1992 shift to nominal multiparty democracy changed little. While opposition parties were allowed to form, they faced systematic obstacles that made fair competition impossible. Elections were charades with predetermined outcomes: in 1993, Eyadéma claimed over 96 per cent of the vote, with inconsistent results revealing obvious manipulation.

As opposition forces gradually consolidated, the elder Gnassingbé was forced to cut his reported margins of victory to maintain credibility. In 2003, facing the unified Union of Forces for Change, he claimed a more modest 57 per cent, though opposition counts suggested he may have received as little as 10 per cent.

Eyadéma’s death in 2005 brought no democratic change. The military appointed Faure as his successor, despite the constitution mandating immediate elections. International pressure forced a hastily organised election in April, but it followed the same old script of violence, fraud and repression. Official results gave the younger Gnassingbé 60 per cent of the vote, starting a pattern that would repeat in 2010, 2015 and 2020.

This year’s constitutional manoeuvre was the culmination of years of careful planning. Until recently, Togo’s political system was strongly presidential. In 2019, apparently responding to civil society pressure, Gnassingbé amended the constitution to reinstate a limit of two presidential terms, abolished by his father in 2002. However, this seemingly democratic reform contained an escape clause: the limits wouldn’t apply retroactively, allowing Gnassingbé to serve two additional terms beyond those already completed.

The March 2024 constitutional changes completed this plan: Togo switched to a parliamentary system with a powerful President of the Council of Ministers elected by the National Assembly rather than by popular vote. This eliminated term limits and the possibility of electoral defeat, as the new role can be extended indefinitely provided the ruling party maintains its parliamentary majority – something easily accomplished given its control of the electoral process.

Systematic repression

The regime controls all levers of power. The supposedly independent electoral commission is packed with loyalists: in 2020, only two of its 19 members weren’t affiliated with Gnassingbé’s Union for the Republic party. The Constitutional Court, responsible for validating election results, is similarly compromised, ensuring legal challenges to fraudulent elections are routinely dismissed. Electoral districts are gerrymandered to favour the ruling party’s northern support base. Security forces are dominated by members of Gnassingbé’s ethnic group, while the regime relies heavily on patronage networks, with party membership providing access to government jobs and contracts.

This machinery of control has been refined through repeated protest cycles over two decades. The 2005 protests following Gnassingbé’s rise to power were met with ruthless violence. Security forces killed 400 to 500 protesters who demanded new elections. A fresh wave of protests following fraudulent elections in 2010 saw security forces use teargas, beatings and arbitrary arrests. Protests in 2012 and 2013, led by the Save Togo coalition of opposition parties and civil society groups, forced the government to delay parliamentary elections, but also saw the suspicious death in custody of opposition leader Étienne Yakanou. Civil society groups accused the government of deliberately killing him through medical neglect.

Protesters faced another violent response when they called for electoral reform and term limits in 2014 and 2015. A more sustained challenge to the ruling party came during protests in 2017 and 2018, when masses took to the streets demanding presidential term limits which would have seen Gnassingbé’s rule end in 2020. The government’s response was particularly brutal, with security forces firing live ammunition, killing at least 16 people.

By 2020, the government had developed pre-emptive suppression tactics, imposing protest bans and surrounding opposition leaders’ homes to prevent demonstrations before they could begin. In 2024, it suspended media outlets and pre-emptively arrested opposition members. But the resistance hasn’t relented, forcing the regime into desperate measures such as psychiatric detention of artists and international arrest warrants for diaspora activists.

The government has also developed sophisticated information control mechanisms. Journalists face regular harassment. Recently, French correspondent Flore Monteau was detained and forced to delete protest footage, while Togoscoop editor Albert Agbeko was interrogated and made to delete photographs he’d taken while covering voter registration. The government regularly suspends international media outlets, most recently banning France 24 and RFI for three months for allegedly broadcasting ‘inaccurate and tendentious remarks’ about the protests. Criminal libel laws and digital repression – including spyware use on journalists’ phones – combine to silence critical voices.

Internet shutdowns have become routine during protests, first deployed systematically during the 2017 to 2018 demonstrations and continuing through recent unrest. The government blocks major social media platforms including Facebook, Signal, Telegram and YouTube, a recognition of their crucial role in organising protests. It uses trolls to manipulate social media engagement and undermine human rights organisations online.

M66 and the latest protest wave

The latest wave of protests began when police arrested Aamron for posting a video urging people to take to the streets on Gnassingbé’s birthday, 6 June. His detention ignited latent frustration among young people who saw in the attempts to silence him a reflection of their lack of voice. This gave birth to the 6 June Movement (M66), led by young artists, bloggers, diaspora-based activists and civil society figures who rely heavily on social media to coordinate protests, bypassing state-controlled channels.

M66’s first protest took place on Gnassingbé’s birthday. In Lomé, people held symbolic ‘noise protests’, banging pots and pans and blowing vuvuzelas to make themselves heard amid a heavy police presence. Though largely peaceful, the authorities met the protests with force: security forces broke up gatherings and arrested people, with several later confirming they’d been tortured in custody.

On 26 June, protests flared again, and this time they were much larger and explicitly political. Protesters denounced Aamron’s arrest and the 2024 constitutional coup, and expressed their anger about rising electricity tariffs and the soaring cost of living. The state responded with brutal repression, killing at least seven people, including 15-year-old Jacques Koami Koutoglo. Security forces fired teargas, beat protesters and made mass arrests.

Despite repression, protests continued. People again took to the streets ahead of local elections on 17 July, accusing the government of staging yet another sham vote with predetermined results and calling for a boycott. Security forces once more intervened with teargas and arrests. The government further intensified repression by issuing international arrest warrants for M66 leaders based abroad, accusing them of terrorism and subversion. This made clear that the government feels threatened by a movement operating outside the traditional political system that’s harder to control.

By August, M66 had grown into a broader civic movement. Alongside organisations such as Front Citoyen Togo Debout and Novation Internationale, it declared 30 August a day of civil disobedience. Under the slogan ‘Togo Mort’ (‘Dead Togo’), they urged people to shut down normal life in protest.

A democratic tipping point?

Pressure for democratic change in Togo appears to be reaching a tipping point. The constitutional changes designed to sustain Gnassingbé’s power have instead galvanised unprecedented opposition, creating a focal point for decades of accumulated grievances.

The central role of young people – less intimidated by the security apparatus and better connected through social media – has diversified opposition tactics and strengthened resistance. Activists now shift between street protests, legal challenges and international advocacy as circumstances dictate.

The diaspora is also playing a crucial role, with Togolese communities abroad organising solidarity protests and advocating with international organisations for sanctions on the Gnassingbé regime.

Significant obstacles remain, however, as the security apparatus remains loyal to Gnassingbé. For a democratic transition to take place, international pressure would need to intensify, including the imposition of targeted sanctions on regime officials and their economic interests. Regional bodies, notably the Economic Community of West African States, would need to act, including by threatening to suspend Togo until democratic reforms are implemented.

The latest protests have shown that the regime’s control isn’t as absolute as it used to be. Whether this marks the beginning of a genuine democratic transition or another chapter in a long history of repressed dissent will depend on the ability of pro-democracy forces to sustain pressure. Togo’s young people have discovered the power of collective action – and that could prove decisive.

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