As balloting counting began for up to 3.2 million eliginble Togolese voters in the presidential election on 4 March, IRIN asked voters and experts what it would take to reach true reconciliation after decades of political violence…

""Impunity will no longer be tolerated, the blood of Togo's sons and daughters will no longer flow freely on our land, the land of our ancestors."" These words, penned five months after a bloody poll in April 2005 that killed at least 400 and dispersed tens of thousands, formed the basis of a truth and reconciliation commission, created to help the country move past decades of recurring political violence.
""Elections will not be enough to bring together the people,"" said Gameti Akuyo, a fabric vendor in the capital, Lomé. ""Those who carried out violence must recognize their wrong and ask for pardon. If not, reconciliation is just a joke, and evil will continue.""
President Fauré Gnassingbé, whose post is up for grabs, took power after his father died in early 2005 in an election marred by a security crackdown that included torture, rape and extrajudicial killings, according to Amnesty International, a human rights watchdog.