Lome – Togo held municipal elections on Thursday after rare and deadly protests that rocked the tiny west African country, ruled with an iron fist by the same family since 1967.
Young protesters have taken to the streets since June to voice their anger at the state of the economy, widespread unemployment and the repression of government critics.
Such unrest is rare in Togo, as the government of Faure Gnassingbe, in power for 20 years, has in recent years ramped up its crackdown on dissent.
Rights groups have blamed the police for the deaths of seven marchers in the June protests, after activists fished out their bodies from the capital’s rivers.
Le Président de la République, Jean-Lucien Kwassi Lanyo Savi de Tové a voté ce jeudi 17 juillet 2025, au Centre de vote du Collège Protestant Lomé-Tokoin, dans le cadre des élections municipales qui se déroulent sur toute l’étendue du territoire national.https://t.co/xlnxPE44Zw pic.twitter.com/0sV1gOn2AK
— Présidence Togolaise/Togolese Presidency (@PresidenceTg) July 17, 2025
Despite a call for fresh demonstrations against Gnassingbe, the streets of the seaside capital Lome were quiet Thursday, as the police turned out in force along the main avenues.
As for every polling day, the country’s land borders were shut. Most polling stations opened on schedule at 7:00 am (GMT), but voters were only trickling in, an AFP journalist saw.
“Voters are coming in one by one,” Bernisse Adjo, in charge of a polling station at the Attiegou school, told AFP.
“We hope they will turn out in the afternoon. But voting is proceeding calmly.”
Isaac Tchiakpe, Togo’s minister of technical education, said the vote was “proceeding as normal”.
Just over half of Togo’s eight million population voted in the last municipal elections in 2019, according to the electoral commission, with turnout in the capital especially weak.
Gnassingbe’s ruling party swept the vote in a landslide, winning more than 60 percent of the councillor seats.
Gnassingbe took power in 2005 following the death of his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had ruled the country for 38 years.
The dynastic handover sparked massed demonstrations against the government, with protests also erupting in 2013, 2017 and 2018.