Togo's main opposition leader said on Saturday his party would take part in a presidential election in eight days, but may call a boycott if conditions worsened. "We will take part in these elections. The conditions are difficult but we are going to participate. For the moment, we are not calling a boycott unless things get worse during the week," Gilchrist Olympio said. He spoke after crossing into Togo's capital Lome from Ghana, where he has a house. Thousands of supporters wearing yellow T-shirts and waving palm branches rushed his car as he arrived, singing and dancing alongside as it crawled through the city.
| "Hurrah! Hurrah! It's Whatsisname!" |
Olympio, who fled into exile after an assassination attempt in 1992 but has since returned to the West African nation several times, later attended a rally in a football stadium.
| "Nice game, guys, but I'll be going home to Ghana now..." |
Presidential elections are to be held on April 24, but the opposition says the vote was organized too hastily and accuses authorities of rigging electoral lists. The opposition has staged daily demonstrations to demand a delay to polls meant to draw a line under a constitutional crisis sparked when former president Gnassingbe Eyadema died in February after ruling the former French colony for 38 years. The army immediately appointed his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as president, sparking an international outcry and triggering violent street protests. Gnassingbe later agreed to step down and run for president in the elections. The main opposition parties have named one candidate to contest the vote -- Emmanuel Akitani-Bob, vice president of Olympio's Union of Forces for Change (UFC) party.
| I hope he loses. Africa hasn't had a lot of luck with countries run by guys named Bob. |
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