Roundup: Togolese vote in peaceful presidential poll

Polling stations across the Togolese national territory opened Saturday for voters to elect the country's president from among the five candidates who include incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe.

Some 3.5 million voters were expected to turn up in 8,994 polling stations spread across the country.

In Lome, the capital, voting went on peacefully in the morning. Hundreds of voters had arrived early at the polling stations which opened at 7:00 a.m. local time.

Madeleine, a 38-year-old trader, expressed satisfaction with the process. "I am very happy that I have accomplished my civic duty. I hope the results will be good for my candidate Faure," she told Xinhua.

In Kodjoviakope suburb in Lome, a refrigeration engineer named Kossi, 45, expressed hope for change. "I hope my vote will yield some fruit by bringing change we have been yearning for," he said.

Among the five candidates, Gnassingbe, who came to power ten years ago and is contesting for a third term, is considered to be the favorite due to the division within the opposition.

Opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre, who came second to the president in the 2010 elections, is considered as the president's key opponent.

The two candidates voted, a few hours after the opening of the polling stations, in their respective strongholds in Lome.

After having cast his vote at a polling station based at General Eyadema primary school in Lome, Gnassingbe declared that "he was used to this exercise."

"This is the hour of choice because everyone has had 24 hours to reflect," he said after casting his vote, adding that "the different candidates had explained their policies to the population during a peaceful and violence-free campaign."

The incumbent president expressed hope that the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI), the organ in charge of organizing the elections, will be able to "start releasing provisional results today night."

Fabre, the candidate for the Combat for Political Change coalition (CAP-2015), voted at the polling station based at the General Learning College which is near his home in Kodjoviakope suburb.

The opposition leader noted that he had gone around the country to explain his policies to the people and was confident of a positive outcome.

"I am confident, especially that the Integrated System for Collection and Tallying Election Results (SUCCES) has been abandoned," he explained.

The SUCCES system had raised some controversy with regards to the transparency of the elections, but CENI had argued that it would only be used as a tool for monitoring the general trend of the election results.

Fabre had vehemently opposed the use of the system, warning against announcing any results generated by the system and recommending use of traditional method of vote tallying using hard copies of election results from the polling stations.

Besides Gerry Taama who equally voted in the Togolese capital, the other two candidates, Aime Gogue and Mouhamed Traore, respectively voted in their original homes in extreme north and central Togo.

Gnassingbe came to power in April 2005, following the death of his father General Gnassingbe Eyadema who had ruled Togo for 38 years. Endi