President Faure Gnassingbé ordered this Friday evening that the new Constitution voted on Monday be subject to a second reading in the National Assembly. According to the president, it is necessary to re-study this text in the face of the interest aroused by the new provisions of the text, highly criticized by the opposition and civil society.
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With our correspondent in Lomé, Peter Sassou Dogbé
The press release from the Presidency of the Republic read on the national television news indicates that the Head of State, in view of the interest aroused by this law, asked the President of the National Assembly to carry out a second reading of the text. “ Everything is perfectible », Specifies the press release.
Adopted at the beginning of the week by the Assembly, the text provides to transition Togo to a new Republic. There would no longer be a presidential election by direct universal suffrage. The leader of the majority party in the Assembly would become de facto president of the Council for a six-year term, it is he who would lead the policy of the Nation.
The adoption on the night of Monday to Tuesday aroused the anger of part of the opposition and within civil society. Opposition parties and civil society organizations denounced a power grab. The bishops called on the President of the Republic to postpone the promulgation of the voted text. In short, it is a general disapproval, and even within the population, the adoption of the text caused a lot of misunderstanding.
Should we see this call from the President of the Republic for a new reading as a way of calming things down as Togo prepares for legislative and regional elections next month?
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