Togo presidential rival Fabre claims victory ahead of results….

Lome, March 5 (Reuters) – The main opposition candidate in Togo’s presidential election said on Friday he believes he won by a broad margin — a claim that sets the stage for protests if the official results disagree.

The vote held on Thursday in the small West African nation has been seen as a test for democracy in a region rife with coups and flawed elections, and in a country notorious for its bloody crackdown in demonstrators after its last vote in 2005.

“On the basis of the counts from certain prefectures, the UFC candidate has won an average of 75 to 80 percent of the votes,” said Jean-Pierre Fabre, the top rival to incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe.

“We conclude that we have won the presidential election of March 4, 2010,” he said.

Voting in the small West African nation took place under heavy security, but official results were not expected until the weekend. Fabre has said his party reserves the right to call protests if the results of the election are dubious.

Gnassingbe’s 2005 victory, allowed him to succeed his father’s nearly four decades of dictatorship in the world’s No. 4 producer of phosphate, a main ingredient for fertiliser.

But it touched off protests in which the military killed up to 500 people, triggering a refugee crisis in neighbouring Ghana and Benin.

More than 3,000 local and nearly 500 European and West African observers were dispatched to monitor the election across Togo, a sliver of land between Ghana and Benin where only half of the nation’s 6.6 million people were registered to vote.

Parliamentary elections held in 2007 went off peacefully, leading to the restoration of foreign aid.

(Reporting by John Zodzi; writing by Richard Valdmanis; editing by Michael Roddy)