Tuesday, March 09,2010
Togo opposition attacked with water cannons, tear gas following dispute election

Togo's opposition party leader Jean-Pierre Fabre, center with yellow cap, takes to the streets to protest the results in Thursday's presidential ballot in which President Faure was declared a winner. Togo's top opposition party said Sunday they have proof that the ruling party committed fraud to win the country's contentious presidential election and that they will show their evidence in court. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

(AP)Riot police used a water cannon and tear gas to attack the headquarters of the main opposition party Tuesday as its leaders huddled inside following a disputed presidential election, police and opposition leaders said.

Earlier security forces had blocked leading opposition candidate Jean-Pierre Fabre from reaching a demonstration he had planned to lead in the fourth day of rising tension since the son of the country's former dictator was declared winner of the presidential vote.

Hundreds of protesters had gathered on one side of the boulevard in a downtrodden neighborhood to wait for Fabre. He had vowed to lead a protest every day demanding a review of the results of last week's election that handed victory once more to the same family that has ruled Togo for the past 43 years. Fabre said his car was pelted with tear gas grenades as he approached a column of anti-riot police that blocked his path with fiberglass shields. On the other side of the column, his supporters clashed with police throwing rocks and setting a car on fire. Huge orange flames licked out of its sides.

Shortly after when he had returned to the party's headquarters, police surrounded the headquarters and attacked with a water cannon and tear gas.

Abalo Issah, spokesman for a special election commando unit, said the police took the measures because the opposition was intent on going ahead with a march that the government had banned. He denied that security forces had come to destroy evidence of alleged election rigging.

Fabre claimed that security forces on Tuesday burst into the office where the party was compiling election results and preparing evidence to back up its allegations the vote was rigged. The country's constitutional court is due to review the results later this week.

"We were ahead in the polls. It's for this reason that they went and seized our proof ... because they know very well that the results they proclaimed were fraudulent," Fabre said.

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