Jean Pierre Fabre is a politician and leader of the opposition Alliance Nationale pour le Changement, the African Republic of Togo. Prior to that, for a number of years he served as secretary general of the Union of Forces of Change, and was considered the leader of the parliamentary group from this party in the Togolese National Assembly from 2007 to 2010. The main opposition candidate for president in the 2010 and 2015 presidential elections.
Biography and education
Pierre Fabre was born on June 2, 1952 in the city of Lome. Attended school in Togo. He received his higher education in economics at the University of Lille with a degree in business management. After completing his master's degree in 1979, he returned to Togo. After returning to his homeland, he taught at the University of Benin for 4 years, and served as Secretary General of the Research Group on Architecture and Urbanism from 1981 to 1991.
Married. The Fabre family has two children.
Political career
In the early 1990s, Pierre Fabre met as editor of the two weekly newspapers Tribune de Democrat and Temp de Democrat. In 1991 he took part in the Sovereign National Conference as a press secretary.
On February 1, Gilchrist Olimpio founded the UFC or the Forces of Change Party. It was a federal union of all the opposition parties in Togo that existed at that time. Olympio appointed himself to the post of president of the party, and chose Pierre Fabre as his general secretary.
At the very end of 2002, the Togolese National Assembly voted to lift the presidential term limit. This decision enabled then-President Gnassingbe Eyadema to run for another term. The opposition condemned these actions and called on their voters and the Togolese population to vote against Eyadema.
A new presidential election in Togo was scheduled for June 2003. Shortly before their start, Pierre Fabre, along with Patrick Lawson as leaders of the opposition, were arrested in a trumped-up case of incitement to rebellion. Then they were released, but only to be charged again. This time, he was involved in the arson of a gas station, the incident with which occurred in May 2003.
In February 2005, the newly elected President Eyadema unexpectedly dies in office and the government decides to hold early elections for a new president. Opposition candidate Emmanuel Bob-Akitani has officially lost the race to the ruling Togolese Rally party candidate Foré Gnassingbe. The election results were later challenged by the opposition, which caused unrest among the local population, as well as numerous protests. The Union for the Forces of Change (UFC) refused to participate in the government formed in June 2005, and only one member of this opposition party entered the government at his own discretion.
In October 2007, the UFC party again participated in the parliamentary elections. Pierre Fabre then topped the list of MPs and won 27 seats out of 81 in the National Assembly. Although the ruling party retained a parliamentary majority, the UFC reaffirmed its status as Togo's largest opposition party. In Fabra Lome's hometown, the UFC won 4 out of 5 seats in the local National Assembly, which is why Fabre was elected head of the Loma National Assembly.
Despite numerous violations pointed out by the UFC, the Togolese Constitutional Court at the end of October 2007 confirmed the results of the parliamentary elections. And then everyone began to prepare for the 2010 presidential elections.
2010 presidential election
Initially, everyone believed that the opposition would nominate UFC leader Gilchrist Olimpio as a candidate in the 2010 presidential election. But due to back pain, he was unable to arrive in Togo on time and apply for his candidacy, as well as undergo the necessary medical examination. Then it was decided to nominate Pierre Fabre instead of Olympio, especially since his candidacy was fully and completely approved by the opposition in the face of the UFC.
During the presidential campaign, Pierre Fabre tried to rally around himself many opposition parties that are not part of the UFC, traveled all over the country, talked with voters. He called on the government not to falsify the elections in favor of the incumbent President Gnassingbe.
But immediately after the elections, the unexpected happened: the election results at the polling stations were supposed to be transmitted to the Central Election Commission via the VSAT satellite system, but it unexpectedly went out of order (or was turned off by the government). As a result, the election results were calculated manually, for which the UFC party was completely unprepared.
As a result of the elections, Gnassingbe received almost 61% of the votes, Fabre - just under 34%. Fabre tried to organize protests to protest the unfair and fraudulent elections, but police and security forces dispersed the protesters. After some time, searches were carried out in the UFC offices and the police confiscated all computers and documentation, which is why the UFC was subsequently unable to prove the facts of election fraud.
However, Fabre's 34% result impressed many. First, because Pierre Fabre was not considered as a presidential candidate until 2010. Secondly, because Fabre did not have any political experience before and did not engage in serious work in the National Assembly.
In 2010, the UFC, led by Olympio, entered into an agreement with the ruling party on the division of powers. In protest against this, Pierre Fabre left the UFC and created his own party, the National Alliance for Change (ANC), which included hardliners against agreements with the government. In the 2013 parliamentary elections, this party won 19 out of 81 seats in the National Assembly.
2015 presidential election
In the 2015 presidential elections, the already famous Fabre ran as a candidate from his opposition party. According to the official results, Pierre again lost the election to the incumbent President Gnassingbe. Like last time, Fabre challenged these results, accused the ruling party of numerous frauds, and himself - the elected president. According to calculations carried out by supporters of Fabre, he should have received 60% of the popular vote against 40% for the current president. The Fabre party accused the official election results of being fraudulent and therefore invalid.
