Togo's main opposition party on Sunday rejected the results of a presidential poll handing a second term to incumbent Faure Gnassingbe, as hundreds of activists rallied in the capital to demand justice.
Gnassingbe was returned to office in Thursday's election with 60.9 percent of votes cast, defeating his main rival Jean-Pierre Fabre who took 33.94 percent according to official results announced on Saturday.
But Fabre's opposition Union of Forces for Change (UFC) charged that the vote - seen as a test of emerging democracy in the tiny West African country ruled for four decades by Gnassingbe's strongman father - was flawed.
"We do not recognise these results and we shall fight," the party's secretary general Eric Dupuy told AFP. UFC officials - whose leader Fabre, an economist, had claimed victory in the wake of the poll - are to meet Sunday "to marshal the actions to take in the coming days," Dupuy said.
Hundreds of UFC supporters rallied Sunday in front of the party's headquarters in Lome's working-class Be district. "If they think it is all over, they are mistaken," warned 23-year-old activist Ayih Folly. "We shall mobilise ourselves and pour on the streets to show them this time round that our victory is dear to us." In another part of town, a young pro-Gnassingbe supporter - decked out in a black tee-shirt emblazoned with the president's picture - warned his camp was ready to fight back.
"They (opposition members) accuse us each time that we stole their votes, threatening to pour on the streets," said Evariste Adoul. "We shall show them that we also can take to the streets." But elsewhere in Lome, crowds headed peacefully to Sunday church services or to play sports on the beach.
Gnassingbe is the 43-year-old son of former leader Gnassingbe Eyadema who ruled with an iron fist for 38 years over the poor country of 6.5 million.
Bloody unrest had broken out in the city of 1.5 million people following his election in 2005, with between 400 and 500 people killed according to the United Nations.
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