South Africa, March 02: Voters in the small west African country of Togo go to the polls today to pick a new president in an election widely seen as a test of democratic progress in a nation notorious for electoral violence.
Six opposition candidates are challenging the outgoing President Faure Gnassingbe, who came to power in 2005 after the death of his father, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, whose dictatorial rule lasted 38 years.
Gnassingbe, 43, who was initially thrust into office by the military without an election after his father died, has vowed this poll will raise Togo to new heights, on the basis of “a state of law”.
“For me and others too, it (the election) will be a test of legitimacy.
Wrongly or rightly, for years there was a problem of legitimacy,” he told AFP in a recent interview.
Five years after his demise, Eyadema’s portrait still hanging on the walls at the Lome airport is just one reminder of Togo’s dark past.
But his son chooses to use only his first name on his campaign posters, “higher, farther, more Faure.”
In seeking re-election, Gnassingbe enjoys the backing of the ruling Togolese People’s Rally (RPT), which has been in power for decades in the world’s fourth largest producer of phosphates.
Under international pressure in 2005, Gnassingbe stepped down briefly for a vote to be organised.
He won the poll, boycotted by some of the opposition but he admits it was “traumatic for many people”.
The violence that followed the disputed vote left up to 800 dead according to various sources but the United Nations put the toll at between 400 to 500 deaths.
This time around, Gnassingbe made a passionate call for peaceful polls, urging that “we must avoid at all costs to create fresh tension.”
His rivals respond saying vote rigging would be akin to electoral violence.
The success of the October 2007 parliamentary vote raised hopes for an end to political violence.
“It is in the interest of the Togolese people, including politicians, to prove to the international community that the well organised legislative election was not coincidental,” a Lome-based diplomat warned.
Togo’s first democratic election in 15 years led to the resumption of aid by major donors, including the European Union, which cut off aid in 1993 because of the country’s bad human rights record.
Though authorities want a clean election and promise to do all in their power to hold violence-free polls, Togo’s past still haunts its six million people.
“The Togolese are afraid of reliving the violence they went through in the past,” sais Hamidou Inoussa, a local human rights activist.
—Agencies