Government and opposition renew talks

A national commission set up to resolve Togo's political crisis that followed the 1998 presidential elections resumed its work on Tuesday after months of inactivity. The commission, known as the Comite Paritaire de Suivi (the Joint Follow-up Commission), comprises a coalition of the country's five leading opposition parties and another of parties supporting the ruling Rally for the Togolese People (Rassemblement du people Togolais). The commission met in the capital, Lome, with a one-point agenda: to revive political dialogue by organising the long-delayed legislative elections. These elections, originally scheduled for October 2001, have been delayed by disagreements between the opposing blocs within the commission. Both sides make up the national electoral commission which has been unable to organize elections because of the imprisonment of the leader of the opposition Comite d'Action pour le Renouveau, Yaovi Agboyibo. The opposition refused to sit on the electoral commission until Agboyibo was released. He was freed on 14 March after seven months in prison for defaming Prime Minister Agbeyome Kodjo. Although the indictment was quashed in January he remained in prison on a charge of instigating an attack on a political rival in 1997. Though President Gnassingbe Eyadema had vowed to keep out of judicial matters, he ordered Kodjo's release. New legislative polls are due to replace those of 1999 that the opposition boycotted on grounds that presidential polls, the previous year, were rigged. The lingering political rift led to the adoption of the Lome Framework Agreement that created and mandated the follow-up commission to solve the crisis and hold fresh legislative elections.