LOME, Feb 23 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Togo voted Saturday in an election widely expected to see president Faure Gnassingbé claim a fourth term in power and extend his family’s half-century domination of the west African nation.
The incumbent, 53, was running against six other candidates but with the opposition divided they face a mammoth task to persuade the 3.6 million registered voters to oust him.
Polling day was reported to be calm with a moderate turnout, although many voters had vowed not to take part in an election they describe as neither free nor fair.
Gnassingbé has led the country of eight million people since 2005 following the death of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma, who ruled for 38 years.
He travelled to the family’s home region of Kara to vote, and called on Togolese to “express your choice in complete freedom for the sake of democracy”.
Main opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre of the National Alliance for Change came second at the last two elections but has failed to keep the opposition united.
He called on the people to vote in numbers “to prevent fraud and allow for a second round”.
Agbéyomé Kodjo, who served as prime minister under Gnassingbé’s father, is seen as a potential dark horse after winning the backing of an influential Catholic archbishop.
“The Togolese want change, they want an alternative,” said Kodjo.
Polls closed at 4pm GMT and results are expected early next week according to election officials.
This week, 500 local observers lost their accreditation, accused of interfering in the electoral process, and the system of electronic security of the results was cancelled at the last moment by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
However, some 315 international observers are deployed, mainly from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and the African Union, with many African states supporting the incumbent.
Votes cast in this weekend’s presidential elections in the West African state of Togo will have to be counted manually because of fears the electronic vote-counting system has been hacked, the country’s top election official said.
The head of the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), Tchambakou Ayassor, said it was a development that required an immediate response.
“While deploying these devices it came to our attention that there was a heightened risk of the systems being hacked – which we suspect had the aim of manipulating the results,” he told reporters.
“So we had to react to this so that the gravity of the matter would not be hidden.”
CENI had banned some observers from taking part in processing the results because of concerns over their impartiality, he added. — NNN-AGENCIES
