AFP/Lome
Thousands of supporters of Togo’s main opposition party demonstrated yesterday in Lome against its leader’s agreement to join the government, which has split the Union of Forces for Change (UFC).
Protestors carried placards condemning as a “killer” the UFC’s president Gilchrist Olympio - who struck a deal this week for the party to take up seven ministerial posts under President Faure Gnassingbe.
They wore T-shirts bearing the image of UFC secretary general Jean-Pierre Fabre, who refuses to recognise Gnassingbe’s re-election in March and has denounced the deal with his government.
Other placards read “Down with the Traitors” and “The Fight Goes On.”
Olympio had said on Thursday that he had signed “on behalf of the UFC, a political agreement to participate in a government of national recovery in the spirit of power-sharing with the ruling RPT (Togolese People’s Rally) party.”
But on Friday, the UFC national bureau said it had not been consulted on the accord and was suspending Olympio, 74, temporarily from its ranks along with the seven new ministers.
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