Togolese vote under eye of donors in calm elections

(Recasts lead, updates with polls closing)

By John Zodzi

LOME, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Togolese voted enthusiastically on Sunday in parliamentary elections which their leaders and foreign donors hope will restore full-fledged democracy and major international aid flows to the small West African state.

Election officials reported an apparently strong turnout in the legislative polls, in which opposition parties were participating for the first time in 13 years to elect 81 members of the national assembly.

They had boycotted the last parliamentary elections in 2002.

As polling stations closed across the former French colony, a narrow sliver of territory wedged between Ghana and Benin, vote counting began. The first official results were not expected until Wednesday at the earliest.

Election officials and foreign observers said voting seemed to have gone ahead peacefully in the Gulf of Guinea state. Voters in the port capital Lome formed long lines outside polling stations set up in schools and other public buildings.

"We came out today because this seems to be more serious than in the past," said Djato Awussi, 33, as she cast her ballot. Voters were asked to choose between more than 2,000 candidates from 31 political parties.

Togolese authorities hope Sunday's polls will be free and fair and lead to a full resumption of international aid to their country, which has suffered decades of authoritarian rule and periods of bloody unrest since independence in 1960.

The European Union, once Togo's biggest donor, froze most aid to the country in 1993, citing the poor democratic record of then president Gnassingbe Eyadema, an archetypal African "Big Man" who ruled Togo for four decades. He died in February 2005.

The army named his son, Faure Gnassingbe, as president, violating the constitution and provoking violent protests in which hundreds of opposition supporters were killed by the security forces. Tens of thousands more fled the country.

After winning flawed and violent 2005 elections, Gnassingbe opened a dialogue with opposition parties and formed a national unity government, starting a democratic process foreign donors hope will be crowned by Sunday's multi-party elections.



"PEACEFUL ATMOSPHERE"

"They represent a crucial step in the national reconciliation and democratisation process," the EU and the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, which has sent observer missions to the Togo polls, said in a joint statement.

Fiona Hall, head of the EU observer team, added: "I'm seeing a very peaceful atmosphere ... People have come out very early to vote in very good spirits ... It's very satisfying."

Authorities deployed a specially mustered 3,500-strong election police force for the vote.

Among those running for the 81 seats in parliament were candidates from Eyadema's former ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), from the Union of Forces for Change (UFC) of opposition veteran Gilchrist Olympio and from the Action Committee for Renewal (CAR) of Prime Minister Yawovi Agboyibo.

Almost a decade and a half without full-scale aid has taken a heavy toll on Togo, many of whose 6.4 million people rely on subsistence agriculture to survive. The country also exports phosphates and relies on revenue from its bustling port of Lome.