Togo's President Wins Third Term
Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbe won re-election for a third term in office, according to provisional results, extending a family dynasty that has already lasted nearly a half-century.
The results announced by election commission chairman Taffa Tabiou late Tuesday night gave Gnassingbe about 59 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election. Leading opposition candidate Jean Pierre Fabre had 35 percent of the vote, the commission said.
Fabre said earlier Tuesday the election was marred with serious anomalies and demanded a recount in seven areas in Togo’s north.
A national grouping of civil society organizations gave the voting process fairly high marks over the weekend, commending the electoral commission and security forces for their roles in ensuring a smooth election day and lamenting only that some voters had difficulty finding their polling stations and their names on electoral rolls.
An observer mission of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it turned up “no major incident that may taint the credibility of the voting process.”
Gnassingbe has been in power since 2005 when he won marred elections to succeed his father, who died of a heart attack that year after 38 years in office. The son won re-election to a second five-year term in 2010.
Results will be transmitted to the Constitutional Court later Wednesday, the commission said. The court will then verify and publish final results before May 3, the official end of Gnassingbe’s second term.
