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VoA - News Saturday 25th April, 2015
LOME/DAKAR - Togo's president appealed for peace as he competed for his re-election Saturday against four challengers.
President Faure Gnassingbe is seeking a third five-year term, which would keep his family in power for nearly 50 years. He cast his ballot in the morning in the capital, Lome, where voters started lining up as early as 5 a.m.
"People are voting their convictions today," said one voter.
"You just have to look around the country to see how urgent these elections are. This vote comes down to whether or not you approve of how things are."
The Gnassingbe family has ruled Togo since the current president's father took power in a military coup in 1967.
The opposition said it is time for a change. Politician Jean Pierre Fabre is Gnassingbe's top challenger.
Casting his ballot, Fabre said this act of voting is crucial because from this could come change to the political system, change he said would be a clean break from how things have been done for the past 50 years.
Gnassingbe also voted in Lome.
He said the candidates made their pitches and now is the time for people to choose. All we wish, he said, is that this happens peacefully.
The opposition contested results of the two previous presidential elections in 2005 and 2010, citing fraud and intimidation. Both times, there were violent protests. This election had to be pushed back 10 days amid a dispute over the voter registry.
Further issues arose when the opposition candidates said they would not accept results tallied with a new computer system. A compromise was reached just hours before polls opened - that electronically tabulated results would be verified with signed hard copies from the polling stations.
Chief observer for regional bloc ECOWAS, Amos Sawyer, told VOA the voting appeared calm and organized Saturday despite "minor challenges," like some voters having trouble finding their names on lists at polling units.
"These things happen in all elections in the start. As the day goes along, these little problems, they will be worked out," Sawyer said.
This is a single round election. Whoever gets the most votes wins. The electoral commission could start releasing partial results as early as Sunday.
Messavussu reported from Lome, Look from Dakar.
