Togo votes in long-delayed parliamentary polls

Togo voted on Thursday in parliamentary elections delayed by months of protests, with the opposition seeking to weaken the ruling family's decades-long grip on power. Amid reports of delays and technical problems at several polling stations, the authorities shut down a private radio station for broadcasting allegations of ruling party fraud, sparking a protest by several hundred youths in the capital Lome. The west African nation's President Faure Gnassingbe said he had been briefed about "small technical problems" in some areas. Flanked by a heavy security detail, he voted in Lome's Toikin neighbourhood, saying he hoped the technical hiccups "would be resolved very soon so that everyone who wants to express themselves can do so". The polls are the latest step in the impoverished country's transition to democracy after Gnassingbe Eyadema's rule from 1967 to his death in 2005, when the military installed his son as president. Gnassingbe has since won elections in 2005 and 2010 in the country of six million people, but the opposition has denounced both as fraudulent. Thursday's elections are the first legislative polls since 2007, when Gnassingbe's party won 50 of 81 seats. Ninety-one seats will be decided this time. Jean Pierre Fabre, the most prominent opposition leader and a parliamentary candidate, told AFP that several polling stations opened after the agreed time of 0700 GMT and ballot materials were not delivered on schedule in some areas. "Despite that, I remain confident" in the process, he said. Some complained of not being able to find their names on voter lists. Several hours after the polls opened, the authorities shut down the Legende radio station on the grounds it falsely accused the ruling party of cheating, said Louis-Rodolphe Attiogbe of the main opposition coalition Let's Save Togo. A crowd began protesting outside the station's building in Lome and was growing rowdy, but there were no incidents of violence, an AFP reporter said. The election was initially scheduled for October 2012, but was delayed amid a series of protests by Let's Save Togo, which includes political parties and civil society groups seeking electoral reform. Yaovi Adjo, a 32-year-old security guard, said he "had no confidence that the election would be transparent" because the opposition's proposed reforms were rejected. But Alain Maza, 31, who arrived at a polling station in the capital before voting began, insisted the process would be "transparent" thanks in part to foreign observers. The head of the African Union's observer mission, Guinea's former prime minister Kabine Komara, told AFP the process seemed smooth in the early hours of voting. The opposition "must be tolerant but also watchful about certain things" that may go wrong, he said. Opposition members had at first threatened a boycott of the election, but agreed to participate after negotiations which allowed them access to polling stations and granted them state financing for campaigning. Gnassingbe's Union for the Republic party has called on voters to give it a comfortable majority to continue work in areas such as infrastructure improvements. A number of the best-known opposition candidates have organised themselves into two separate coalitions, Let's Save Togo and Rainbow. Fabre's ANC party is running with Let's Save Togo. The party of Gilchrist Olympio, the long-time opposition leader and son of the country's first post-independence president, is also taking part, though he is not himself a candidate. Olympio, whose father was assassinated in a 1963 coup in which the current president's father took part, agreed to a deal in 2010 to have his faction of the opposition join Gnassingbe's government. Full results are not expected for several days. West African bloc ECOWAS is deploying 80 observers for the vote, while the African Union has sent 32. The parliamentary polls are considered a key indicator ahead of a presidential election scheduled for 2015. Presidential polls in 2005 were marred by deadly violence, while 2007 and 2010 elections were viewed by observers as significant steps forward.