Presidential elections in Togo are set for next month with Faure Gnassingbe as the candidate of the ruling RPT (aka Eyadema’s party). Gilchrist Olympio, the leader of the opposition UFC, can not legally contest the polls, since he was forced to live in exile after an assassination attempt in 1992. Hopefully the opposition in Togo can unite behind a single candidate.

Olympio would be the logical choice, as he is the son of Sylvanus Olympio, the first elected President of Togo, who was murdered by Eyadema in his first coup in 1963. The RTP changed the constitution for the 2003 elections to require that a candidate must have resided in Togo for the 12 months prior to the election. That move excluded then many of Togo’s prominent opposition leaders, who were forced to live in exile under the Eyadema regime.
(sources: BBC Togo Timeline and Wikipedia)

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