THREE DIE IN TOGO ELECTIONS
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At least three people have reportedly been killed and 13 others injured in violence during presidential elections in west African country of Togo.
Witnesses told the AFP news agency three young men died while fighting off attempts by unidentified men who were trying to remove ballot boxes from a voting site in the capital Lome.
As voters turned out in force, the opposition claimed polls had been rigged in favour of the son of the late leader Gnassingbe Eyadema, who had ruled Togo for the previous 38 years.
"The stuffing of ballot boxes is occurring on a large scale and we haven't heard of a single polling station where everything is going well," the main opposition candidate Emmanuel Akitani Bob told AFP.
The poll has essentially become a referendum on four decades of rule by the country’s northern clan.
Voters must choose between Faure Gnassingbe, the 39-year-old son of the former leader, and the main challenger Akitani Bob.
The 74-year-old represents a radical opposition coalition led by Gilchrist Olympio's Union of Forces for Change (UFC).
Mr Olympio, the son of Togo's assassinated first president, lives in exile in Paris and is barred from standing by a clause in the constitution inserted to exclude non-residents from office.
As night fell and the polls closed, groups of youths armed with machetes and clubs spilled into the streets in opposition neighbourhoods.
They threw up barricades and stopped cars, pelting them with stones if drivers refused to obey their orders.
Heavily-armed riot police moved in to clear streets and were seen by correspondent to use tear gas in at least one place.
At one polling station in Lome, groups of youths faced off with riot police, shouting "RPT, liars!", as they accused the ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) of rigging the vote.
In violation to Togo’s constitution, Faure Gnassingbe was named president by the army when his father died, but stepped down after an international outcry and intense pressure from African peers.
"If the opposition are talking of fraud that's because they can already smell defeat," he said. "I do not believe there will be an explosion of violence because I trust in the security forces," he said.
Mr Gnassingbe, the election favourite, was confident of winning the poll.
Togo's election commission did not indicate when first results would be announced.
The country acts as a port for poor landlocked neighbors in the region and African leaders, eager to improve the continent's image, are keen for a peaceful and democratic resolution to the political crisis in the former French colony.
SOURCE: World News
STORY ARCHIVE
Segundo reporte da rádio australiana SBS se reportaram três mortos em incidentes de violência relacionados com os protestos por fraude nas eleições em Togo, nação do oeste da África. As eleições se levaram a cabo para eleger um presidente em substituição de Gnassingbé Eyadéma, quem governa há 38 anos.

Há três candidatos para a eleição: o filho do presidete, Faure Gnassingbé, Emmanuel Akitani Bob de 74 anos, e Harry Olympio, primo do governante de Togo derrocado e assassinado pelo falecido presidente (segundo sua própria declaração) em 1963. Um quarto candidato, Nicolas Lawson, estava também inscrito mas se retirou dois dias antes da eleição por "temor à fraude preparada", segundo sua declaração à agência de notícias Voz da América.

O anterior governante morreu em fevereiro deste ano enquanto era transportado de emergência para receber cuidados médicos. O exército togolês apoiou uma não muito clara sucessão de poder para Faure Gnassingbé, que recebeu um verniz de legalidade obrigado a exercícios de leis realizados pela assembléia para destituir ao presidente da assembléia, Fambare Natchaba Ouattara, e nomear em seu lugar ao filho do falecido presidente. Faure Gnassingbé tinha informado que completaria o período de seu pai, mas a pressão internacional o obrigou a convocar a eleições.