TOGO: France, ECOWAS accused by opposition of tolerating election fraud

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

LOME, 6 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Thousands of protesters, sporting the yellow colours of Togo’s opposition, took to the streets of Lome on Wednesday accusing France and the international community of closing their eyes to electoral fraud ahead of a key presidential ballot that is less than three weeks away.

Angry marchers brandished banners blasting France and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is helping to organise the 24 April presidential poll.

“ECOWAS, (French President Jacques) Chirac’s slave”, “ECOWAS Traitor” and “Postpone the election”, read some of the banners.

The hastily-called election was triggered by the sudden death of Togo’s leader of 38 years, Gnassingbe Eyadema, two months ago.

The poll pits Eyadema's son and heir apparent, Faure Gnassingbe, against Emmanuel Bob-Akitani, a veteran opponent of Eyadema's rule who is backed by an alliance of six opposition parties.

France, the former colonial power in Togo, enjoyed a cosy relationship with Eyadema throughout his four decades in power. Opposition leaders now fear that Paris favours a trouble-free transition in the form of a victory by his son.

ECOWAS initially won praise from the opposition when it played a key role in persuading Gnassingbe to step down as head of state after he seized power with the support of the army following his father's death on 5 February.

Now the 15-nation body is helping to organise the poll, which Gnassingbe hopes will return him to power.

But the opposition fears that the electoral roll will be stuffed with the names of phantom voters and the vote rigged. It wants the ballot postponed.

While opposition supporters marched through central Lome on Wednesday, thousands of supporters of Eyadema's ruling party, the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), turned out for a counter-rally to insist that the vote take place on schedule.

In isolated incidents, police and security forces lobbed tear gas at opposition marchers to keep the two demonstrations apart and protesters threw up barricades of burning tyres. Eyewitnesses said several people were injured.

Clashes were also reported in Tsevie, 35 km from Lome, when members of the opposition demonstrated to demand their voter ID cards and the dismissal of a local RPT official.

The protests came a day after authorities officially stopped handing out voters’ ID cards at 5,350 makeshift voter registration bureaux across Togo at the end of a 10-day campaign to update the electoral register.

The opposition alliance dubbed the whole exercise as a sham, noting that many people had been denied the right to vote, while many of the voting cards distributed to the registration bureaux had not been handed out.

“Where are our cards?” read one protester’s banner, echoing opposition claims that the electoral roll is being tampered with and voting cards withheld on the orders of Eyadema's RPT, which still controls all the levers of government.

On Monday an IRIN correspondent saw stacks of unissued voters' cards piled on tables in several registration centres.

“Look, 512 people picked up cards in my registration bureau but there are still 700 to be distributed,” said an official helping to update the electoral roll at Gbenyedji school in Lome. “And the electoral roll was taken away before it had been completed”.

Another official said he had been allocated 880 voting cards, but only 80 receipt slips, which are supposed to be filled in for each card handed out.

“The many irregularities are proof that the ruling party has compromised the election and the international community must be aware of this,” the opposition alliance said in a statement issued on Tuesday night shortly after the registration process had closed.

The opposition renewed its call for a postponement of the election to allow more voters to register and more cards to be issued and hinted that it might withdraw from the poll if its demands were not met.

“There can be no election without us as everyone knows,” said Jean-Pierre Fabre of the main opposition party, the Union of Forces for Change (UFC).

But the ruling RPT said a postponement would violate deadlines set by the constitution and agreed to by ECOWAS.

And opposition coordinator Yaovi Agboyibo questioned whether ECOWAS was really determined to see a free and fair poll. “People have a feeling that ECOWAS is failing in its mission," he said.

Agboyibo also called on the security forces, which have long been associated with Eyadema, to steer clear of politics during the election. “The army must assume its responsibilities while remaining neutral during the political debate,” he said.

Meanwhile local churches added their voice to calls for more international involvement in the election, saying after a week-long ecumenical conference that the country of five million people was poised on the brink of trouble.

“The time set to hold the forthcoming presidential election is technically too short to allow the required reliability and transparency or results that will be acceptable to everyone,” the conference of Togolese church leaders and visiting delegations from abroad said in a final statement on Sunday.

Last week human rights leaders warned that tension was mounting across the country. “We are set on a course of conflict,” Sylvestre Zoumou, deputy head of the Togolese League of Human Rights, told IRIN. “The conditions for a free and fair election have not yet been met, many voters are not being given their cards.”

The decision to hold the presidential election was taken on 3 March, leaving the authorities only six weeks to organise the ballot.

Diplomats said that was not very long to organise a demonstrably free and fair election in a country that has been repeatedly criticised for electoral fraud and human rights violations.

The European Union has declined to send observers to monitor the poll and the United States is still mulling whether or not to do so.

[ENDS]