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Constitutional Court Upholds
Olympio's Rejection
(UN Integrated Regional Information Networks May 7,
2003)
Togo's Constitutional Court on Tuesday rejected an
appeal filed by opposition leader, Gilchrist Olympio,
seeking to validate his candidature for the 1 June presidential
elections, crushing all hopes for Olympio to run against
his long-time opponent and incumbent President Gnassingbe
Eyadema.
The Court upheld an earlier decision by Togo's electoral
commission that Olympio was ineligible to contest the
elections because he lacked a certificate of residency
and an up-to-date tax payments receipt. The constitution
requires, among other things, a presidential candidate
to live in Togo for at least 12 months prior to election
date and to have taxable income in the country.
Since falling out with Eyadema in the early 1990s,
Olympio has lived in exile in London, Paris or Accra.
He returned to Togo on 26 April and declared that he
had no taxable revenue in the small West African nation.
Head of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC) party,
Olympio is the son of Togo's first president who was
killed in a coup d'etat in 1963. He himself has escaped
an assassination attempt. In 1998, the only time Olympio
participated in presidential elections, he came second
to Eyadema winning over 34 percent of the vote.
His supporters on Wednesday attempted to block one of
the capital's busiest streets in protest. Others set
tyres ablaze and partially burnt down a fuel station.
Armed policemen were swiftly deployed to the areas and
broke up the unrest.
Before the Court announced its decision, a pamphlet
titled 'Everybody must be candidate' circulated around
the capital Lome urging the Court to declare Olympio
eligible. It threatened those who it said excluded any
candidates with death. "The MJDT [Youth Movement for
Democracy for Togo] urges the Togolese armed forces
to be, for once, at this historic rendez-vous," it said.
Sources in Lome told IRIN that they believed that
the MJDT is a break-away faction of an opposition group,
the New Popular Dynamic (Nouvelle Dynamique Populaire).
Meanwhile,
authorities on Wednesday begun distributing voters cards.
However opposition candidate, Edem Kodjo, told IRIN
that there were rumors that the distribution of cards
did not take place in opposition strongholds. 
Kodjo
disapproved of the Court's ruling and deplored that
Eyadema had gone back on his word that he would not
run in 2003. He urged the opposition to present a united
candidate against Eyadema, who has been in power since
1967. "If the opposition can present a unique candidate,
then we will have good chances of winning," Edem, a
former secretary-general of the Organization of Africa
Unity, said in Lome.
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