The head of the ECOWAS 80-member Observation Mission to Togo’s 25 July legislative elections, Ambassador Leopold Ouedraogo, has called on all stakeholders, especially political leaders and their followers, to conduct themselves in a manner that will ensure peaceful polls.

Speaking shortly after his arrival in Lome on Sunday, Ambassador Ouedraogo, a member of the ECOWAS Council of Wise, said the outcome of the legislative elections would be crucial to the country’s presidential polls in 2015.

“We are here as neutral observers to accompany Togo through a peaceful electoral process and in strict adherence to the regional protocol on Democracy and Good Governance,” said Ambassador Ouedraogo, who also led an ECOWAS fact-finding mission to the country last June.

He explained that the regional observers would be deployed to all the five regions in Togo to ensure that national and regional electoral rules and regulations were complied with.

According to PANA, Lome, the nation’s capital, will serve as the observation coordinating centre for effective monitoring of the electoral process and communication with the regional observers across the country.

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