Lome - Togo's incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe has extended a strong lead over his main rival in a weekend poll, according to the latest partial results issued Tuesday.
Gnassingbe looked poised to win a third term, with 69 percent of the vote against almost 18 percent for challenger Jean-Pierre Fabre, according to figures from the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI).
Gnassingbe's family has ruled the small West African country for almost half a century.
Despite international monitors calling the vote free and transparent, opposition members have accused the government of engaging in elections fraud to try to hold on to power.
The president, who first came to power in 2005 on the death of his iron-fisted father Gnassingbe Eyadema, saw his bid for a third term sharply boosted by overwhelming support from the north of the country, a family stronghold.
Figures released so far by the CENI cover about 26 percent of the estimated number of voters in Saturday's election.
Tchaboure Gogue, one of three candidates from small opposition parties who chose to take on both Fabre and the president, also found support in his native north.
The university professor is running third with eight percent of the votes.
The main opposition Combat for Political Change (CAP 2015), which backs Fabre but is a divided and fractious coalition of five parties, has accused the regime of elections fraud.
"It's always been by force: attacks, ballot-stuffing, fraud... That the Gnassingbe family has managed to stay in power for 50 years," CAP 2015 spokesman Eric Dupuy told AFP.
AFP
