By a 6-to-1 margin, Togolese citizens favour a two-term limit for their president, according to a new Afrobarometer survey.
Based on the October 2014 survey, 85% of respondents agree – including 60% who “strongly agree” – with the statement that “The Constitution should limit the president of the Republic to serving a maximum of two terms in office” (see Figure 1 below). Only 13% favour no limit on presidential mandates.
Public opinion on the issue has remained steady since Afrobarometer’s 2012 survey, in which 84% of Togolese respondents favoured term limits, placing Togo in the top one-third among 34 African countries in support for such limits (Figure 2).
Almost half (49%) of Togolese respondents said in 2012 that term limits should apply retroactively to the two terms that President Faure Gnassingbé has already served, while 11% said they should not; a full 40% supported neither side or did not know.
In the wake of the public uprising in Burkina Faso that forced long-ruling President Blaise Compaoré from office, thousands of Togolese have taken to the streets in recent weeks to demand presidential term limits that would bar Gnassingbé from running for a third term in
March 2015.
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