TOGO: UNCOMPROMISING POSITIONS DURING THE NATIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 LOME 000529

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

PARIS FOR D'ELIA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/21/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KDEM TOGO'>TO
SUBJECT: TOGO: UNCOMPROMISING POSITIONS DURING THE NATIONAL
DIALOGUE?

REF: A. LOME 447

B. LOME 452

C. LOME 32

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Classified By: Poloff Rona Rathod for reasons 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (U) Summary. Three weeks after the official opening of
the TOGOlese national dialogue, discussions are moving along
at a tortuous pace. In leading the proceedings, dialogue
chair Yawovi Agboyibo of the opposition CAR party has been
ponderous, as have been the agreed-to procedures. This week,
the nine delegations concluded the initial discussion round,
to be followed by individual sessions with the dialogue board
to find consensus on the twelve points of discussion.
Whether unresolved topics will be heard by a facilitator
remains unsettled. Following a visit to Lome, Louis Michel's
comments about the dialogue sparked some rancor among
TOGOlese who believe that he has de-linked holding free and
fair elections from the rest of the reforms TOGO has pledged
to make in order to resume receiving EU development
assistance. Electoral reform being the most contentious
subject of discussion, the delegates spent an entire week
discussing it without coming up with very many concrete
agreements. Since several parties are being too partisan in
the negotiations, many issues are being tabled to be hashed
out later. However, it seems likely that a transitional
government will be put in place after the talks. End
summary.

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SLOW AND STEADY CAN WIN THE RACE... OR NEVER SEE THE FINISH
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LINE
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2. (SBU) Three weeks after the official opening of the
TOGOlese national dialogue (see ref A),discussions are
moving along, albeit at a tortuous pace. After Prime
Minister Edem Kodjo kicked off the first session of the
dialogue, and after a prolonged and acrimonious dispute about
voting procedures to be used during the process, the nine
delegations, selected CAR (Action Committee for Revival)
president Yawovi Agboyibo to chair the proceedings. The
participants also voted in Kissem Walla-Tchangai, former
member of the electoral commission who announced last year's
presidential election results and current member of a women's
NGO close to the ruling party, as vice-chair and Gilbert
Bawara, Minister Delegate to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
charged with cooperation, as rapporteur. As chairman of the
dialogue, Agboyibo has been very ponderous, reporting to the
press issues addressed in the sessions in a lethargic,
meandering manner, without providing much substance.


3. (C) The dialogue process has been moving sluggishly not
only because of the languid Agboyibo, but also as a result of
vague procedures. The opposition UFC (United Forces for
Change),at the behest of its self-exiled president Gilchrist
Olympio, threatened to leave its seat at the dialogue empty
if the delegations finalized agreements by majority vote
rather than consensus. In order to convey the seriousness of
his threat, Olympio tasked Robert Dussey of the Community of
Sant'Egidio in TOGO with transmitting a message to TOGOlese
President Faure Gnassingbe reiterating this position.
Therefore, each of the twelve official topics of discussion
must be addressed in two stages. (Note. Four more topics
were added after ref B: 1) institutional reform outside of
the election context, 2) financing of political parties, 3)
the call to resume cooperation, and 4) putting in place a
mechanism to follow the implementation of decisions made
during the dialogue. End note.) In the first stage, each of
the nine groups has the opportunity to express their opinions
about the twelve points of discussion and then discuss them
in a plenary session. In the second stage the participants
will attempt to reach consensus on each subject.


4. (SBU) Mired in these equivocal procedures, the
representatives at last brought stage one of the negotiations
to a close on May 16. In a May 17 press conference, Agboyibo
confirmed that the second stage of the talks had commenced
and indicated that during the second stage, the dialogue
board would meet with each party individually to prod them to
make concessions on issues that could potentially derail the
negotiations. Burkinabe president Blaise Campaore has also
reportedly offered to meet the delegations individually in
Ouagadougou to consult on their perceptions of what has so
far taken place. The conclusions of the individual sessions
will be compiled into a draft agreement, which the board will

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then pass to each delegation for their comments and
amendments. They plan to reconvene in a plenary session on
May 24 to formulate a definitive political agreement.


5. (U) Which prompts us to wonder about what will happen
to polemical issues that do not find consensus during the
national dialogue. The participants have not arrived at a
final determination about whether to use the good offices of
a facilitator to resolve disputed issues (see ref C).
Despite this, the delegations seem to have a tacit
understanding that a facilitator will assist them to work
through unresolved topics.

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EU COMMISSIONER'S VIEWPOINT SPARKS RANCOR
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6. (U) Strenuous grumblings were heard around Lome after
European Union (EU) Commissioner Louis Michel's May 4-5 trip
to meet with participants of the national dialogue. Michel
made comments suggesting that the issue of elections was the
most important for the EU in order to resume bilateral
assistance. Arranging free and fair national legislative
elections is one of the outstanding obligations of the 22
commitments the TOGOlese government made to the EU. He hoped
for a complete agreement on an electoral framework and an
indicative date for nationna legislative elections for the EU
to be able to move on making available 20 million euros of
European Economic Development Funds. By putting priority on
the elections, Michel is seen to have de-linked this issue
from the rest of the commitments TOGO made to the EU, thereby
prompting some TOGOlese to accuse Michel of losing sight of
the essential purpose of the dialogue: truth and
reconciliation among TOGOlese.


7. (U) Others felt that what Michel said was exactly right
and that malcontents are missing the nuance of his
statements. They have put forth the opinion that free and
fair elections will demonstrate that TOGO is on a positive
trajectory toward real democratic systems and will calm the
increasingly volatile population so that a new government can
continue to implement the other commitments. This camp views
a successful election as an immediate result and the other
commitments as ongoing processes.

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ELECTION CONTENTION
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8. (U) The participants' handling of the election issue,
however, may not bode well for restarting assistance. After
a full week of talks, the delegates finally saw the
conclusion of negotiations about this first, and most
contentious, topic of focus. Despite wrapping up talks about
elections at the end of last week, several issues key to
putting the election process in motion remain unresolved.
Although all parties have agreed that the government should
undertake an electoral census, the modalities remain to be
defined. Similarly, the representatives did agree that
international civil and military observers would be welcome
during the next election, but did not unanimously consent to
local observers.


9. (U) More troublesome is the fact that no inroads have
been made on defining the composition of the powerful
electoral commission. The essential quandary hinges on
whether to categorize opposition parties playing a role in
the current government, namely the CPP (Panafrican Patriotic
Convergence) party of the prime minister (who is no longer
involved in the dialogue) and the foreign affairs minister's
PDR (Party for Democracy and Revival),as truly opposition or
as part of the ruling party. The ruling RPT (Rally of
TOGOlese People) reportedly refuses to classify the two
political factions as part of their own group and wants to
label them opposition.


10. (U) Talks about electoral districting have also fallen
flat, with the opposition demanding more seats in Lome than
the RPT is willing to relinquish. The government is
insisting on completing the general population consensus
before even mentioning redistricting. The end result of this
lack of consensus is that the provisional national
legislative election date has been pushed back from November
2006 to early 2007. Notwithstanding these uncompromising
positions, the delegates have found consensus on technical
issues, such as distribution of voter cards and what fee to
levy upon candidates.


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DITHERING LOVES COMPANY
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11. (SBU) The prolonged sessions without consensus prompted
Jean-Pierre Fabre, Secretary General of the UFC, to complain
that the delegates are bracketing every issue, simply
agreeing to disagree. Foreign Minister Zarifou Ayeva
commented that the government had made a mistake in electing
not to employ a facilitator and conducting the dialogue
within TOGO. The obduracy of the delegates has also
triggered some behind-the-scenes nudging, with Michel telling
Faure quietly that his RPT group needs to take a broader view
of the talks and be more forthcoming with compromises. The
EU observer to the dialogue (ECOWAS and Burkina Faso are also
represented) also accused the GoT itself of being too
partisan in its negotiations.

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COMMENT
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12. (C) While UFC party members charge other delegations of
being unyielding, they too are not willing to budge on many
issues. Nevertheless, it is heartening to see the major
TOGOlese opposition party playing a part in talks it has
repeatedly threatened to boycott because of prior failed
dialogues. Notwithstanding the resoluteness of some of the
parties, they will in all likelihood appoint a transitional
government following the conclusion of the talks. However,
next steps remain as vague as ever with disagreement being
the most common theme of this dialogue.
DIFFILY