LOME, May 5, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Togo's ruling party won a parliamentary majority in April's legislative elections, the country's electoral commission said Saturday, after a divisive constitutional reform critics say allows President Faure Gnassingbe to extend his time in power.

Gnassingbe's Union for the Republic party (UNIR) won 108 of 113 seats in the new assembly, according to provisional results announced by the national electoral commission.

The participation rate in the election was 61 percent, according to the electoral commission president Dago Yabre, who gave the results in a national broadcast.

Under the new constitution approved by lawmakers in April, Gnassingbe will now be able to take a new post as president of the council of ministers, a role similar to prime minister that is automatically assumed by the leader of the majority party in parliament.

Already in power for nearly 20 years, Gnassingbe succeeded his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled for almost four decades in the small coastal West African state between Benin and Ghana.

Opposition parties denounced the constitutional reform as an "institutional coup" for creating a role tailor-made for Gnassingbe to evade presidential term limits and extend his family's political dynasty.

UNIR loyalists say the reform made Togo's democracy more representative.

Under the previous constitution, Gnassingbe would have been able to run for the presidency just one more time in 2025.

Gnassingbe, 57, has already won four elections, though all were denounced as flawed by the opposition. The main opposition boycotted the last parliamentary election in 2018, citing irregularities. But this time they had rallied supporters to challenge UNIR dominance.

According to the new constitution, Togo's president now becomes a mostly ceremonial role elected by parliament, and not the people, for a four-year term.

Togo's shift from a presidential to a parliamentary system means power now resides with the new president of the council of ministers, who will be the leader of the majority party in the new assembly.

For the opposition this means Gnassingbe will be able to stay in power without term limits as long as the UNIR is the majority party in the national assembly.

Regional election observers had said they were satisfied with the conduct of the April 29 election, which also saw a vote for regional representatives who will help select the membership of the senate, a newly created second chamber.

Opposition parties denounced some irregularities in the legislative election and others had challenged the constitutional reform as illegal in the court of the regional bloc Economic Community of West African States or ECOWAS.

But opposition attempts to protest against the new reform were also blocked by authorities. Political rallies have been banned in Togo since an attack on the large market in Lome during which a military police officer was killed.