Dictator's son wins Togo election

Togo’s election commission declared the son of the country’s late dictator winner of the presidential race today.

Faure Gnassingbe’s triumph extended the family’s rule into a fifth decade, in a deep blow to Togo’s opposition, which vowed to take to the streets in protest.

Provisional results indicated President Gnassingbe won 1.2 million votes, representing 60.9% of the roughly two million votes cast in the tiny country, said Issifou Tabiou, the head of the election body.

Opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre, who had earlier accused the ruling party of rigging the election, received 692,584 votes, or 33.9%.

As it became clear that the opposition had lost and Mr Gnassingbe would get a second term, Mr Fabre led a group of around 200 protesters to a square in the capital Lome where they were pushed back by anti-riot police who fired tear gas, said witnesses and a police spokesman.

The contentious election is only the second since the death of Eyadema Gnassingbe, who grabbed power in a 1967 coup and ruled for 43 years, only for his son to seize power upon the dictator’s death in 2005.

The younger Gnassinge went on to win elections that same year that were widely viewed as rigged.

Pro-Gnassingbe soldiers openly intimidated voters at polling stations and in several instances opened fire with live ammunition before stealing the ballot box, according to a report by London-based Amnesty International.

Although the opposition has claimed that this election was rigged, international observers said earlier they had not seen overt evidence of fraud. But they say there is evidence that the ruling party tried to buy off voters.

During campaign rallies, opposition supporters chanted “We were not paid to be here” – a swipe at Mr Gnassingbe who they accuse of handing out cash and bags of rice to supporters.

Election monitors from the European Union’s observation mission were present in at least four different regions when members of the ruling party handed out rice at a cost three to four times less than at the market, according to the mission’s preliminary report. The cheaper rice has been nicknamed “Faure Rice”.

The district-by-district results indicated turnout was in the 70 to 80% in the north of the country, where Eyadema Gnassingbe was born and which has traditionally voted for the ruling party.

By contrast, voter turnout was woefully low in the south and in the capital, which is the opposition’s stronghold.

Jean-Claude Homawoo, the vice president of the election commission who is a member of the top opposition party, said that voters are so used to elections being rigged in Togo that they gave up hope just when their vote may have counted.

Mr Gnassingbe’s spokesman Pascal Bodjona denied claims that the ruling party had tried to buy the vote, saying that people who favoured Mr Gnassingbe’s policies had donated bags of rice, campaign T-shirts and other goods that were later distributed. He called the opposition “bad losers”.