{"id":969,"date":"2010-03-15T15:01:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T20:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomathon.com\/mphp\/?p=969"},"modified":"2011-03-12T19:54:15","modified_gmt":"2011-03-13T00:54:15","slug":"togo-the-political-class-fails-its-people-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/2010\/03\/togo-the-political-class-fails-its-people-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Togo: the political class fails its people, again."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Faure<\/a>

Faure Gnassingb\u00e9, understandably pleased.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jeune Afrique<\/a> editor Fran\u00e7ois Soudan has a biting new piece on the recent Togolese election<\/a>. Noting defeated opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre’s neologism “Africaneries” (for “African Inherited rule”, presumably) Soudan turns the tables of blame deftly.<\/p>\n

“For African oppositions, some of whom, in Guinea and Niger, have been reduced to military coups to break political deadlocks – which says a lot about their disarray – the lesson of Lom\u00e9<\/a> is a cruel one. As long as opposition leaders contest polls without program, and act without strategy or self-criticism, the powers that be will sleep soundly. Resigned, disillusioned and unwilling to serve as canon fodder for the powerful, the voters will more and more the “exit option” of abstention. As for Faure Gnassingb\u00e9<\/a>, he received on March 4 that which he sought. A brand new legitimacy, given neither to his party nor to his family nor to his surname, but to him. Without doubt he would do well in his next speech, to thank Mr. Olympio [the historic leader of the opposition] for the assistance he has so kindly provided … “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeune Afrique editor Fran\u00e7ois Soudan has a biting new piece on the recent Togolese election. Noting defeated opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre’s neologism “Africaneries” (for “African Inherited rule”, presumably) Soudan turns the tables of blame deftly. “For African oppositions, some of…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[75,107,106],"tags":[377,337,343,327],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/300px-Faure_Gnassingb\u00e9_29112006.jpg?fit=300%2C400","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mYFK-fD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomathon.com\/mphp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}