By
Ewoenam Kpodo, GNA
Lome (Togo), Feb.
23, GNA – Togolese are anxiously waiting for the provisional results of the
February 22 presidential election to know the new president to lead the country
for the next five years.
Togo’s Independent
National Electoral Commission (CENI), led by Mr Tchambakou Ayassor, is
promising to release provisional results on Monday, February 24.
The Electoral
Commission is, however, expected to declare the final results from the
country’s 9,376 voting centres within a week for the Constitutional Court’s
validation.
Seven persons
including the incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe of the Union for the
Republic (UNIR), Mr Jean-Pierre Fabre, National Alliance for Change (ANC), and
Dr Agbeyome Kodjo of Patriotic Movement for Democracy and Development (MPDD),
are in the race.
In parts of the
capital, Lome, where the Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited, counting of ballots
ended around 1800 hours at various polling stations after the polls, which
started at 0700 hours and ended at 1600 hours.
At Kodjoviakope
Public School Polling Station (with 10 separate centres), Kodzoviakope RC
School (with seven centres) and Nyekonakpoe EP Basic School, having four
centres, Dr Agbeyome Kodjo was in the lead by the provisional results.
Dr Kodjo was a Prime
Minister under President Gnassingbe’s father and he is a candidate proposed by
influential Catholic Bishop, Philippe Fanoko Kpodzro.
Some voters who were
at the centres to observe the counting told the GNA that they were in constant
communication with friends and family from other parts of the country as a way
of monitoring the processes.
Mr Michael Gbogbo,
an entrepreneur said: “We appreciate the electoral reforms we’ve witnessed this
year including leaving our borders opened but the most important thing is that
the CENI should give us the results as they are, they should not engage in any
electoral fraud as in the past.”
“The results are
speaking volumes and we expect our authorities to respect the decision of the
Togolese people and allow the one we have chosen to be our president.”
The GNA observed
that counting of ballots was done in the full glare of the public where CENI
officials showed ballot papers to voters for confirmation before another official
stationed at the chalkboard, was allowed to tick a point against a candidate
for onward tallying.
Shortly after the
polls, there were reports that security forces had sealed off the home of Dr
Agbeyome Kodjo but the security responded that it did so to protect the
opposition candidate.
The February 22
presidential election, the first presidential polls after constitutional
changes occasioned by anti-government protests in 2017, will require a 50 per
cent and over votes for a winner to emerge, failure by which a run-off between
the two top candidates would be held in weeks.
GNA