Togo President Faure Gnassingbe Extends Lead in Vote

Lome: Togo's incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe has extended a strong lead over his main rival in a weekend poll, according to the latest partial results issued Tuesday.

Gnassingbe was poised to win a third term, with 69 percent of the vote against 18 percent for main challenger Jean-Pierre Fabre, according to figures from the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).

Gnassingbe's family has ruled the small west African country for almost half a century.

Despite international monitors calling it a free and transparent vote, opposition members have accused the government of engaging in electoral fraud to hold on to power.

However later Tuesday the tone eased, with Fabre himself telling AFP that he would "leave the CENI to do its work."

The president, who first came to power in 2005 on the death of his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, saw his bid for a third term sharply boosted by overwhelming support from the north of the country, a family stronghold.

Figures released so far by the CENI cover about 26 percent of the estimated number of votes cast in Saturday's election.

Vote-counting has been slowed by the opposition demanding that the CENI tally the voting papers rather than base its results on figures sent from the counting offices via the so-called "Success" electoral computer system.

Tchaboure Gogue, one of three candidates from small opposition parties who chose to take on both Fabre and the president, also found support in his native north.

The university professor was in third place with eight percent of the votes.

The main opposition Combat for Political Change (CAP 2015), which backs Fabre but is a divided and fractious coalition of five parties, has accused the regime of election fraud.

"It's always been by force: attacks, ballot-stuffing, fraud... that the Gnassingbe family has managed to stay in power for 50 years," CAP 2015 spokesman Eric Dupuy told AFP.

No term limits

However the African Union, which sent 43 observers to monitor the election, concluded that voters had been allowed "to choose their president... freely and in transparency".

And Amos Sawyer, the head of 100 monitors sent by the 15-nation regional bloc ECOWAS on Sunday said the vote had overall been "free, transparent and organised in an acceptable manner".

The EU, Togo's leading international lender, said Tuesday the election "went off calmly, confirming the Togolese people's attachment to democracy."

The electoral commission has yet to release any results from the capital Lome, a bustling port city on the Gulf of Guinea that has historically been an opposition stronghold.

John Dramani Mahama and Alassane Ouattara, presidents of Ghana and Ivory Coast respectively, arrived Tuesday in Lome, where they held talks with the presidential candidates and CENI head Taffa Tabiou to "take stock of the electoral process", Togo's presidency said.

"The heads of state said we had taken too much time" and called on the commission to hand the official election results to the constitutional court on Wednesday, Tabiou said after the meeting.

Nationwide, the CENI has estimated turnout at between 53 and 55 percent, markedly lower than the rate of almost 65 percent in 2010, when Gnassingbe beat Fabre.

The army provoked an outcry when it first rushed Gnassingbe into office after General Eyadema died in February 2005, leaving a power vacuum following his rule of 38 years.

Gnassingbe swiftly stood down and an election was hastily organised, which saw him win his first five-year term in a nation that was previously administered by Germany then France.

Togo celebrated 55 years of independence on Monday.

Currently there are no limits on the number of times a president can stand for re-election. The opposition wants a two-term limit.