Lome – Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe has named Selom Klassou as the country’s new prime minister after winning elections in April, extending his family’s nearly five-decade grip on power.Klassou, the first vice president of the national assembly and former sports and primary education minister, succeeds Kwesi Seleagodji Ahoomey-Zunu, who resigned his post on May 22.
Gnassingbe was sworn in for his third term as president on May 4 after winning nearly 59% of the vote in the small west African country that his family has controlled since 1967.
Iron fist
The main opposition party, Combat for Political Change (CAP 2015), dismissed Gnassingbe’s election win as fraudulent, but international observers broadly praised the polls as free and fair.
Togo’s president re-appoints the government and its leader after any legislative or presidential election.
Klassou, 55, is a key member of the ruling Union for the Republic (UNIR) party and has held the position of vice president of the national assembly since 2007.
Gnassingbe’s father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, seized power in a coup and ruled with an iron fist for 38 years over the former German and French-administered colony until his death in 2005.
PH
