Togo vote a test of democracy in country emerging from dictatorship

Togo vote test of democracy in former dictatorship

LOME, Togo — In a country that has never had a free and fair election and where five years ago soldiers burst into polling stations and stole ballot boxes, the citizens voting here Thursday for president are daring to hope that this election could mark a line in the sand.

Voters lined up inside dilapidated schools where the classrooms have no windows and under palm trees in the tropical interior, patiently repeating the same civic exercise they have been practicing for half a century. But this time as they waited in line in the capital, citizens placed their index finger under their eye, code for “we are watching them.”

“Them” is the party of Togo’s late dictator Eyadema Gnassingbe, who came to power in a coup after killing the former president 47 years ago. He held on for decades, running in elections in which he was the only candidate. When he died in 2005, his son seized power, then held elections which he won despite widespread allegations of fraud.

Faure Gnassinge, who has vastly outspent the competition and has wallpapered the country with his posters, is hoping to win a second term and to erase memories of the reportedly rigged election that brought him to power. He has worked hard to portray himself as different from his father and his posters do not even include his family name, identifying him simply as “Faure.”

Five years ago the violence started before the votes had even been counted. Soldiers came in trucks and took the ballot boxes at one precinct in the east of the capital, firing tear gas grenades and rounds of live ammunition, according to an investigation by Amnesty International. At a different polling station near the beach, the presidential guard stole the ballot boxes then opened fire on the voters, leaving bodies strewn on the ground, the report said.

The U.N. determined that at least 400 people were killed in the postelection violence.

Jean-Pierre Fabre, a 57-year-old deputy in the National Assembly and the top opposition candidate, says that this time around the people will not let the ruling party steal the election. He says he is personally ready to die.

“When you have a general who is the first to go into battle, it’s very different from a general who sketches out battle plans inside an office. If I have to die, I’ll be the first to go. I will be the first one in the street to challenge them,” he said, predicting that tens of thousands of opposition supporters will take to the streets in a Togolese version of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution if there is evidence of fraud.

“They can kill 10,000. They can kill 20,000. But at some point, they will stop,” he said.

Among the people voting in Thursday’s ballot was a 102-year-old man who was bent over like an upside down L and had to be helped by his son, who held out the elderly man’s finger so that it could be dipped in ink. Gregoire Codjo, whose eyes were blue with cataracts has voted in almost every election since the country’s independence from France in 1960.

“Every single time, I noted the name of the candidate I wanted to vote for and placed it in the ballot box. Not a single time were our votes really counted,” he said. “I am voting again today, and we hope it will be different. But we feel unsure. There is doubt.”

The 43-year-old Gnassingbe is credited with significant reforms since his father’s death including allowing an independent press, but critics say that even if he is trying to turn a page on the past, he is still playing by his father’s playbook.

His father ran in elections in which he was the only candidate in 1972, 1976 and 1984 and it was not until 1993 that other parties were allowed to run. Even when they did, the ruling party disqualified the top opposition leaders, finding technicalities to bar them from running so that the dictator would face only minor challengers.

In this election just like five years ago, opposition icon Gilchrist Olympio was disqualified after the government claimed he had improperly filled in a health certificate required of candidates. Olympio is the 74-year-old son of the country’s first president Sylvanus Olympio who was murdered in 1963 by Eyadema Gnassingbe. Fabre has been chosen to stand in his place.

In 2005, Fabre says the party was taken off guard by the senior Gnassingbe’s death and was not able to get election monitors into the roughly 5,900 polling stations. Both the opposition and the ruling party are allowed to send two monitors at each to be present when the votes are cast and counted. This time, says Fabre, they have mobilized roughly 12,000 supporters who are in position at all the polling stations.

They are accompanied by hundreds of independent observers, including 80 monitors from the European Union, as well as 146 from a regional bloc of African states.

“We are accustomed to fraud,” says Brigitte Adjamagbo-Johnson, one of the other six opposition candidates running against Gnassingbe. “But this time we are determined to stay vigilant and to reclaim our victory.”

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Associated Press Writer Ebow Godwin contributed to this report from Lome, Togo.