Togo holds first-ever senate vote despite opposition outcry

Municipal and regional councillors began voting on Saturday in Togo's first-ever senatorial elections amid fears that President Faure Gnassingbe is looking to use the new constitution to hold on to power indefinitely.

Several opposition parties have said they will boycott the vote, and civil society groups have also denounced the parliamentary reform for the small West African nation of nine million people as rigged.

The new constitution replaces the direct election of the head of state with a parliamentary system, making the presidential position merely honorific.

Power will be transferred to the president of the Council of Ministers, a position currently held by Gnassingbe, who has led the country since 2005 when he took over from his father who had been in power for 38 years.

Under the previous constitution, Gnassingbe was limited to one last presidential run, in an election set for this year.

More than 1,500 municipal councillors and 179 regional councillors will elect 41 out of 61 members of the new senate from the 89 candidates standing.

The rest of the senators will be appointed by the president of the Council of Ministers, in other words by Gnassingbe.

Polls opened at 7:00 am and are due to close at 4:00 pm.

"It's a new constitution that we have never tested. We had to test it to see the sides that are not good and to appreciate the rest," municipal councillor Vimenyo Koffi, who voted early on Saturday morning in the capital Lome, told AFP.

A leading opposition group, the Alliance of Democrats for Integral Development (ADDI), has confirmed that it would participate in Saturday's elections.

But several other opposition parties, including the National Alliance for Change (ANC) and the Democratic Forces for the Republic (FDR), have said they would boycott it, calling the overhaul and Senate vote a "constitutional coup d'etat".

The ANC on Wednesday expressed its "firm rejection of this anti-democratic process that aims to install an illegal and illegitimate republic".

Earlier in the week, FDR slammed a "parody" vote and said the Senate would be a costly institution "while our municipalities and regions painfully lack the financial means to address the population's vital needs".

The president's supporters say the constitutional change ensures more representation.

Gnassingbe's governing party, the Union for the Republic (UNIR), won legislative elections last April in a landslide.

Opponents had called the ballot an "electoral hold-up" marred by "massive frauds".