The father was Africa's longest-reigning dictator, ordered his enemies executed, and claimed to be chosen by God.
Now the 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 tiny, impoverished west African country. As tension mounts, Togolese were praying for peace and hoping for democracy.
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.
PHOTO: EPA
Some 2.2 million people in this nation of 5 million are registered to vote during the 6am to 6pm polling taking place today. Counting was to start immediately, but it was unclear when results would be announced.
The front-runner is Faure Gnassingbe, whose strongman father Gnassingbe Eyadema ruled for 38 years -- longer than any other leader except Fidel Castro.
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 jackboot security forces and spies prowled the dust-blown boulevards and halls of university campuses.
Togo's military thrust Gnassingbe to power shortly after Eyadema's death, 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 US -- 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 in a nation where the average annual income is US$270, making it among the poorest in Africa.
"I am the new image of Togolese youth, the new image of Togo," 39-year old 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, Gnassingbe has a real shot at winning the vote if elections are fair.
Even some in the opposition have said Akitani, the main opponent, is too old to lead Togo into a 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 at one rally. "We need jobs and peace, and Faure is the one promising this change.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS