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Las Vegas SUN

April 22, 2005

# Late Togo Dictator's Son Seeks Presidency

By BRYAN MEALER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOME, Togo (AP) -

The father was Africa's longest-reigning dictator, ordered his enemies executed, and claimed to be chosen by God. Now his son is running for president of Togo in a weekend vote already shadowed by violence, with protesters threatening to die fighting if the family of the late dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema maintains its stranglehold on this West African country.

As tension mounts, Togolese were praying for peace and hoping for progress toward democracy which could translate into increased international aid and economic development in a country where one-third of the people live in poverty.

Togo's interim head of state on Friday vowed the elections will go ahead, and fired a minister who had called for the ballot to be canceled because of fears of bloodshed. Some 2.2 million people in this nation of 5 million are registered to vote Sunday.

The front-runner is Faure Gnassingbe, whose father ruled for 38 years.

Eyadema died of a heart attack Feb. 5, ending an oppressive era in which political foes were routinely tortured and killed, dissent was crushed by security forces and spies prowled the dusty boulevards and halls of university campuses.

He was considered one of Africa's last "Big Men" - rulers holding power through patronage, the loyalty of their ethnic and regional groups, and military force.

He led postcolonial Africa's first coup d'etat, in 1963, and assumed direct power four years later. He used repression to resist the wave of democracy that rolled across the rest of sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s.

After his death, the U.S. State Department urged the country "to move toward a full and participatory democracy."

Togo's military thrust 39-year-old Gnassingbe to power shortly after his father died, prompting such local and international outrage he stepped down and promised elections in 60 days, as stipulated by the constitution.

Gnassingbe's three rivals in the race - Bob Akitani, Harry Olympio and Nicolas Lawson, all longtime opposition members - have called for the elections to be postponed, charging irregularities in voter registration and exclusion from the electoral process. Their concerns, though, have not prompted them to withdraw.

In the run-up to the vote, riot police have been accused of killing several anti-regime demonstrators. The government recently banned all private TV and radio stations from covering the elections.

On Friday, as questions over whether the vote could go ahead raised tensions, opposition protesters appeared on the streets, wielding machetes and nail-studded clubs.

Gnassingbe is backed by the military and has his father's political machine at his disposal. And as a candidate, his style seems to mimic that of his father, who kept his pinky fingernail aristocratically long and wore expensive suits and gold-rimmed sunglasses.

Gnassingbe, a businessman educated at George Washington University in the United States, also prefers tailored suits and expensive shoes. He buzzed between rallies in a rented white helicopter, unlike his main rival, the 75-year old Akitani, who campaigned in tropical shirts and traversed the country in a four-wheel drive.

Despite the echoes of his father, Gnassingbe presents himself to voters as a modern technocrat, with the youthful energy and fresh ideas it takes to bring reform to a country with an average annual income of $270, among the lowest in Africa.

"I am the new image of Togolese youth, the new image of Togo," Gnassingbe said on a recent campaign stop in the southern town of Keve.

"I'm going to take this country to the next level," he declares. "More freedom, more democracy. It's the only way we can solve our problems."

For Gnassingbe to be taken seriously abroad, he has to escape his father's tall, ominous shadow. But at home, some observers say, he has a real shot at winning the vote even if elections are fair.

Even some in the opposition have said Akitani, the main opponent, is too old to lead Togo into the future.

Gnassingbe has been treated almost like a deity as he campaigned in Togo's forested interior. Speakers line up to praise him as a "unifier," and village elders in gilded crowns bow to him.

"Demonstrations and violence will not give us solutions," said Fousse Blaise, 40, after listening to Gnassingbe promise hospitals, a new town market and a peaceful election day. "We need jobs and peace, and Faure is the one promising this change."

The election was likely to be just the beginning of the challenges facing Togo's next leader, said Emmanuel Anin, a political analysts with African Security Dialogue and Research, a think-tank in neighboring Ghana.

"There's been so much distrust and suspicion building up for so long, any election will be fraught with difficulties," Anin said. "Whoever wins, the other side will claim it has been stolen, and there could be violence."

On Friday, Akitani appeared to thundering applause before about 10,000 supporters at Lome's Omnisport Stadium to close his official campaign. The crowd - wearing opposition yellow and waving palm leaves, the symbol of the party - shouted to foreign reporters gathered behind a steel fence.

"They're gonna kill us in the night," they said of the government. "Please do something, please help us."

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