Jean-Pierre Fabre

Jean-Pierre Fabre (born 2 June 1952) is a Togolese politician and the President of Togo's main opposition party, the National Alliance for Change (Alliance Nationale pour le Changement, ANC). He served for years as Secretary-General of the Union of the Forces of Change (UFC), and he was President of the UFC Parliamentary Group in the National Assembly from 2007 to 10 August 2010. He stood as the main opposition presidential candidate in 2010 and again in 2015.

When the UFC was founded in 1992, under Gilchrist Olympio, Fabre was designated as its Secretary-General. When Olympio was unable to run in 2010 election due to medical issues, Fabre was chosen as the UFC candidate for the March 2010 presidential election. According to official figures, he lost to President Faure Gnassingbe by a wide margin.

In May 2010, a power sharing agreement was signed by the ruling party and Olympio's party. Opponents of the deal and hardliners within the UFC, led by Jean-Pierre Fabre, left the party to create their own. A brand new party was created, the National Alliance for Change, with Fabre as President. In the 2013 legislative election, Fabre's ANC emerged as the main opposition party when its coalition (Sauvons le Togo) won 19 seats in the National Assembly. Fabre again ran as the main opposition candidate in the April 2015 presidential election and lost again to Gnassingbe. On 29 April 2015, Fabre rejected the official results of the election and proclaimed himself the elected president, alleging massive fraud by the ruling party.

Born in Lomé in 1952, Fabre studied in Togo before attending university in Lille. After receiving a degree in economics, specializing in business administration, he returned to Togo in 1979. He taught at the University of Benin in Togo for four years and was secretary-general of an architecture and urbanism study group from 1981 to 1991.

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