{"id":15588,"date":"2018-09-19T02:22:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T02:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15588"},"modified":"2018-09-19T02:22:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T02:22:36","slug":"togo-announces-referendum-legislative-election-dates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=15588","title":{"rendered":"Togo announces referendum, legislative election dates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"93.7684729064\">\n<p class=\"speakable\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/togo.html\">Togo<\/a>\u00a0will hold legislative and local elections in December as well as a referendum on constitutional reform.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;We will hold the local elections and the referendum on December 16, <span>and on December 20 we will organise legislative elections,<\/span>&#8221; national election commission chief Kodjona Kadanga said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;We are technically prepared. I can assure you that we have sufficient balloting material as well as people. There are no problems on our side.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span>Kadanga\u00a0<\/span>did not specify what reforms were envisaged.<\/p>\n<p><span>Togo&#8217;s latest political crisis started in August when large numbers of people rallied against the administration of President Faure Gnassingbe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mass anti-government rallies have repeatedly been held across the country since 2017, with protesters demanding an end to the 50-year rule by the Gnassingbe family and constitutional reform, including a two-term limit for presidents.<\/p>\n<p>Nationwide demonstrations have led to clashes between security forces and protesters that have turned deadly.<\/p>\n<p>The opposition is demanding a return to the 1992 constitution, which included a two-term limit for presidents, effective retroactively so Gnassingbe cannot be a candidate in the next vote in 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Calls for institutional reform also include reinstating a two-round voting system and allowing diaspora to cast ballots in elections.<\/p>\n<p>More than half of Togo&#8217;s 7.5 million population is under 25. These people have only known life under the rule of Gnassingbe and his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling family&#8217;s dynasty started in 1967 when Eyadema seized power in a coup.<\/p>\n<div data-embed-type=\"Brightcove\" data-embed-id=\"5651852301001\">\n<table class=\"in-article-item video Fullwidth\" border=\"0\">\n<tbody readability=\"1\">\n<tr>\n<td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr readability=\"3\">\n<td readability=\"5\">\n<p>Togo\u2019s Gnassingbe resists calls to end 50-year dynasty<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Togo\u00a0will hold legislative and local elections in December as well as a referendum on constitutional reform. &#8220;We will hold the local elections and the referendum on December 16, and on December 20 we will organise legislative elections,&#8221; national election commission chief Kodjona Kadanga said on Tuesday. &#8220;We are technically prepared. I can assure you that&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":15589,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}