Status quo remains in Sudan and Togo as turmoil mounts in pre-poll Burundi

What you need to know:

  • In Sudan, Bashir purportedly garnered a massive 94.5 per cent of the votes and the leader, who has been in power since 1989 and faces charges at the International Criminal Court, was last Monday declared the winner.
  • Fabre called for the cancellation of the results, accusing the government of refusing to organise free and fair elections. He further described the outcome as “a coup” and exhorted his compatriots to “mobilise by all legal means” to counter the latest development.

With the conclusion of recent polls in Sudan and Togo, the incumbents, Omar al-Bashir and Faure Gnassingbé, respectively, seem set to continue in power indefinitely.

Although none of the countries has solid constitutional provisions for their eventual exit, the two leaders’ continued stay in power does not in any way indicate their universal acceptance by the respective countries’ voters. Even more poignantly, voter turnout was relatively low in both nations.

In Sudan, Bashir purportedly garnered a massive 94.5 per cent of the votes and the leader, who has been in power since 1989 and faces charges at the International Criminal Court, was last Monday declared the winner.

His ruling National Congress Party also won the parliamentary election with a comfortable 323 seats out of 426.

However, according to the African Union observer mission led by former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, voter turnout was “generally low”, a hardly surprising observation following opposition calls for a boycott.

As for Togo, after an equally low turnout, Gnassingbé was declared winner after winning 59 per cent of the 1.2 million ballots cast, against main challenger Jean Pierre Fabre’s 35 per cent.
The announcement of the results, however, predictably led to claims of electoral fraud. Pulling no punches, the top challenger immediately stated that the results did not match those compiled by his party.

COUP

Fabre called for the cancellation of the results, accusing the government of refusing to organise free and fair elections. He further described the outcome as “a coup” and exhorted his compatriots to “mobilise by all legal means” to counter the latest development.

“This is an electoral coup,” Fabre’s campaign manager, Patrick Lawson-Banku, said a day after the results were announced. He said the opposition would announce its own results.

That loaded statement came amid mounting fears of post-election violence that has rocked Togo since 2005 when the incumbent won the first election since his father Gnassingbé Eyadema’s death after ruling for 38 years. Prior to the 2005 election, the younger Gnassingbé had been elevated to the country’s leadership by the army.

In the backdrop of the latest political events in Sudan and Togo, mounting chaos before Burundi’s legislative and presidential elections in May and June has become a cause for concern.

Matters came to a head when President Pierre Nkurunziza last Saturday announced his intention to stand for a third term amid continuing chaos that has resulted in thousands of wary Burundians fleeing into exile.

Nkurunziza and his supporters have tried to play down the alarming developments. Waxing confident, an embattled but apparently still confident Nkurunziza promised peaceful elections even as protests spread.

“The elections will be (more) peaceful than ever before, so I call on all Burundians to turn out in large numbers,” he said in an address to the nation on Friday.
Given the escalating chaos in his country, whether President Nkurunziza’s optimism is justified or not remains a matter for conjecture.