Party for Democracy and Renewal

The Party for Democracy and Renewal (French: Parti pour la Démocratie et le Renouveau) is a political party in Togo. It was founded on May 1, 1991, and its National President is Zarifou Ayéva.[1]

The party has held three statutory congress: in 1991, 1998, and on February 24, 2007.[1]

Ayéva ran as the PDR candidate in the June 1998 presidential election, taking fourth place with 3.02% of the vote according to official results.[2] On August 17, 1998, the PDR was the target of two explosions: one damaged its prefectural office in Sokodé and the other damaged the home of a PDR official in Bafilo. On the same day, a residence belonging to Ayéva was ransacked by security forces.[3]

The party boycotted the March 1999 parliamentary election along with the rest of the opposition,[4] as well as the October 2002 parliamentary election.[5] It participated in the October 2007 parliamentary election,[6] but did not win any seats.[7]

Ayéva has been accused of leading the party in an autocratic manner. The resignations of many leading members of the party, including three—Tchassona-Traoré Mouhamed, Innoussa Nafiou, and Adam Abdou Rahamane—in September 2006, have been attributed to this alleged tendency.[8]

  1. ^ a b "3E CONGRES STATUTAIRE DU PDR : M AYEVA ZARIFOU RECONDUIT A LA TETE DU PARTI" Archived 2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine, radiolome.tg (in French).
  2. ^ "CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES UNDER ARTICLE 40 OF THE COVENANT: Addendum TOGO", United Nations International covenant on civil and political rights, CCPR/C/TGO/2001/3, July 5, 2001.
  3. ^ "U.S. Department of State Country Report on Human Rights Practices 1998 - Togo", UNHCR.org.
  4. ^ "Togo: Opposition leaders, facilitators meet in Paris", Radio France Internationale (nl.newsbank.com), March 6, 1999.
  5. ^ Political Parties of the World (6th edition, 2005), ed. Bogdan Szajkowski, page 592.
  6. ^ "Comment sont décomptés les suffrages"[permanent dead link], Republicoftogo.com, October 14, 2007 (in French).
  7. ^ Text of Constitutional Court decision (final election results) Archived 2007-11-29 at the Wayback Machine, October 30, 2007 (in French).
  8. ^ "Zarifou Ayéva : Les raisons de la démission", Le Changement, N° 043, October 5, 2006 (iciLome, October 7, 2006) (in French).