Politics

Togo: High turnout as voter registration for National Assembly election begins

Published

2 years ago

May 7, 2023

Observers have described as impressive, voter registration towards the national assembly elections in Togo which began on Saturday.

There was however a shortage of materials like paper, and reports of bad computers which stopped the registration of some people.

One of the registrants in the capital, Lomé., Sarath Sidibe, said “It’s a bit difficult, frankly, because things are not improving. They say that the reams of paper are finished, but the machines are not working. Nothing but arguments. You see, it’s not moving,”

Another, who works in a supermarket, Evariste Toganou, stressed “I will take my voter’s card regardless of the hassles. Because this time, I have to vote.”

Carpenter Komlan Edoh was more successful on his second attempt. “I went there yesterday, but I left because of the crowds and the fact that I also had other things to worry about. But it went well today because I arrived at six o’clock. My card was delivered”, he stated.

An official of the Electoral Commission, Kokouvi Paul Dobe revealed that the body had been stretched by the turnout.

“We’re really overwhelmed, but okay. We’re trying to deal with it, we’ve got to do everything we can to try and manage everyone who’s here,” Dobe said.

The ruling party got a majority of 59 seats out of the 91 of the National Assembly during the last election in 2018, while the leaders of the main coalition of 14 opposition parties boycotted the election.

Togo is expected to hold elections for the National Assembly by December, 2023.

Its National Assembly is a unicameral house that has a total of 91 members elected in a party-list proportional representation system. Members serve five-year terms.

Related Topics:Featured Togo Voters registration

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Politics

Egyptian court upholds ex-presidential candidate Ahmed Tantawy’s sentence

Published

8 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Former presidential candidate, Ahmed Tantawy, and his campaign manager, Mohamed Abou El-Diar, were found guilty of faking election paperwork, and given a one-year jail term with labour by an Egyptian court, Tantawy’s legal team announced Tuesday.

Last year, Tantawy was the most well-known candidate to run against Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for a third term, winning 89.6% of the vote.

To avoid receiving the necessary number of public endorsements to be on the ballot, he halted his campaign before to the election, alleging harassment and arrests directed at hundreds of his family members and associates.

Egyptian authorities criticised Tantawy’s tactic of distributing unapproved copies of endorsement forms to garner popular support, but they denied any misconduct.

Egypt’s Misdemeanour Appeals Court upheld the May court ruling on Monday, which prohibits Tantawy from seeking public office for five years and mandates that he pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($395).

Tantawy’s defence team member and well-known human rights attorney Khaled Ali said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the appeals procedure was riddled with anomalies.

Ali said lawyers struggled for months to confirm court dates, with hearings appearing absent from official schedules and case files missing from court registries.

The public prosecution was not immediately available to comment on the ruling or on Ali’s allegations over the process.

Politics

Court orders Uganda to compensate LRA war crimes victims

Published

8 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Uganda’s tribunal has ordered the government to pay up to 10 million Ugandan shillings ($2,740) to each victim of Lord’s Resistance Army commander, Thomas Kwoyelo, the first senior rebel leader to be convicted.

Kwoyelo, a mid-level LRA leader, was sentenced to 40 years in jail in October for war crimes like murder, rape, slavery, torture, and kidnapping.

Kwoyelo’s “indigent” status prevented him from compensating the victims, thus the court ordered the government to compensate.

Kwoyelo’s crimes were “a manifestation of failure on the part of the government that triggers a responsibility on the state to pay reparations to the victims,” the verdict added.

The court also ordered various financial compensation to Kwoyelo’s property destruction and theft victims.

From strongholds in northern Uganda, the LRA brutalised Ugandans under Joseph Kony for over 20 years while it fought the military to destroy the government.

The militants raped, abducted, cut off victims’ limbs and mouths, and bludgeoned them to death using crude implements.

Under military pressure, the LRA withdrew to lawless forests in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic in 2005 and perpetrated civilian atrocities.

Although assaults are rare, Kony and splintered groups are reported to dwell there.

Kwoyelo was taken by the Ugandan military in 2009 in the northeastern Congo, and his case made its way through Ugandan courts until he was found guilty in August.