Supporters of Togo’s ruling-party presidential candidate, Faure Gnassingbe, gathered on Tuesday under tight security ahead of official results expected to confirm he will succeed his father as president of the West African state.
Meanwhile, panicked Togolese continued to flood the border zones, joining the more than 18 500 refugees who have landed in neighbouring Ghana and Benin since the disputed April 24 elections, which unleashed a fury of violence that has left a reported 100 people dead and scores injured.
Results certified by Togo’s Constitutional Court are expected at about 4pm, likely to confirm the provisional tallies that gave Gnassingbe 60% of votes cast, compared with 38% for his opposition rival, Emmanuel Akitani Bob.
An inauguration ceremony is set for Wednesday, a court source said on Monday.
The election culminated months of tension and was considered a victory for African intervention in the problems on the continent after the sudden death of Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo with an iron fist for nearly four decades.
Massive vote fraud and ballot-box stuffing has been alleged by the opposition, which has clashed with police throughout the south and centre of the Atlantic coastal country since provisional results were released one week ago by the national electoral commission.
Despite noting some failures of organisation they said did not affect the outcome, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which sent about 150 monitors, endorsed the conduct of the polls.
Citizens from the other 14 members of Ecowas were targeted by Togolese in the ensuing unrest by opposition supporters, among them seven Malian nationals whose charred bodies were discovered in the seaside capital, Lomé.
More than 18 500 people, most of them women and children, have crossed the eastern and western borders to escape the violence, Jennifer Pagonis, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said from Geneva on Tuesday.
”In Benin, refugees are reporting that more arrivals are on the way”, particularly from the capital Lome, which borders Ghana, and Aneho, on the frontier with Benin, Pagonis told journalists.
”Some refugees, who had previously hoped to find family and friends to stay with, are now asking to go to the camps because they could not locate their relatives.”
Anxious to avoid a bloodbath and restore Togo in the eyes of the international community, which has suspended aid for a decade over what donor nations call ”democratic deficiencies”, authorities have ramped up security both in Lomé and in the country’s interior.
More than 40 arrests have been made since last week, Interior Minister Katari Foli-Bazi said, while investigations are under way to find those complicit in the murderous attacks that ranged from Lome to Aneho in the east and Adakpame in the centre, both opposition fiefs.
”During the riots, there were weapons that were snatched from security forces, and we lynched them — people do whatever they want here,” Defence Minister Assani Tidjani said. ”We have to be on top of things, and not call people to hatred like some opposition leaders are doing.”
Opposition leaders have said that they will continue to mobilise their youth, disdaining all efforts for dialogue and rejecting discussions of a government of national unity, which has received a tentative endorsement from Gnassingbe and other minor candidates.
By midday on Tuesday, Gnassingbe’s supporters had thronged several key areas around the capital, carousing in the red, yellow and green of the Rally for Togolese People (RPT) party under the watchful eye of security forces.
”We’re going to have a caravan of people running through Lomé,” said RPT Youth leader Dominique Begbessou. ”But we won’t be going through the opposition neighbourhoods, just so we can avoid confrontation.” — Sapa-AFP