Togo was on tenterhooks yesterday after the incumbent leader and his main rival both claimed victory in a presidential election, stoking tensions in a country with a bloody electoral past.
The national poll panel CENI was compiling results and pledged to release them yesterday amid accusations that Thursday's vote, seen as a litmus test of the tiny west African country's commitment to democracy, was flawed.
Observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc said in a statement that the poll had been "free" but reported "insufficiencies concerning the reliability and authentification of ballots".
Meanwhile, an opposition member in CENI, Jean-Claude Codjo, quit in protest against what he said was fraud.
"There is a lack of transparency and credibility that I firmly denounce," he said.
Togo's incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe and the opposition Jean-Pierre Fabre each claimed to have won on Friday, sparking concerns of renewed violence.
The last polls in Togo, ruled for nearly 40 years by strongman Gnassingbe Eyadema until his death and then his son, were held in 2005 and violence then had claimed up to 800 lives.
This time round, African observers and Togolese parties agreed the voting was peaceful. But many fear the counter-claims of victory could easily spiral into clashes.
"All the results we have confirm that President Faure (Gnassingbe) has resoundingly, I mean resoundingly, won this election," government spokesman Pascal Bodjona told Radio France Internationale last Friday.
Earlier that same day, Fabre of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), presented as candidate for change, also said he had won.
"Results compiled at the voting centres in our possession give a comfortable lead to the candidate of the UFC," Fabre told a news conference, estimating he had won "an average of between 75 and 80 per cent of votes".
In the rundown working class Be district of the seaside capital Lome, several hundred youths gathered in front of the opposition UFC headquarters shouting "we have won".