ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Togo. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Togo. The Togolese people cannot choose their representatives freely. In the 1993 presidential election, which the opposition boycotted, President Gnassingbe Eyadema claimed to have won 96 percent of the vote. Opposition parties won a majority in the national assembly, but splits and flawed 1996 by-elections allowed Eyadema's Rally of the Togolese People party to regain control of the legislature. The Togolese Media Observatory, which includes both government and private journalists, was established in November 1999 and is charged with protecting press freedom and improving the professionalism of journalists. Eighty percent of Togolese are engaged in subsistence agriculture.
