By John Zodzi LOME, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Togolese voted on Sunday in parliamentary elections which leaders of the small West African state hope will convince foreign donors that they have fully embraced multi-party democratic rule. Opposition parties, who boycotted the last legislative polls in 2002, were participating in the list of more than 2,000 candidates from 31 parties who are vying to fill 81 seats in the national parliament. Lines of voters formed outside polling stations across the Gulf of Guinea state, a narrow sliver of territory wedged between Ghana and Benin. A former French colony, it was also once ruled by Germany between 1894 and 1914. "We were outside since six o'clock. Everything is calm and I believe it will be like that everywhere so we can avoid the election violence we saw in 2005," said one voter, Dermane Kondo, 41, as he cast his ballot in a primary school in Lome. He was referring to the turbulent 2005 presidential poll that elected Faure Gnassingbe as president following the sudden death of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, an archetypal African "Big Man" who ruled Togo for four decades. 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 Eyadema, who 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 the flawed 2005 elections, Gnassingbe opened a dialogue with opposition parties and formed a national unity government, starting a democratic process foreign donors hope will be sealed by Sunday's multi-party elections. NATIONAL RECONCILIATION "They represent a crucial step in the national reconciliation and democratisation process," the EU and the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, which have sent observer missions to the Togo polls, said in a joint statement. "I'm seeing a very peaceful atmosphere ... People have come out very early to vote in very good spirits ... it's very satisfying," Fiona Hall, head of the EU observer team, said. Authorities have deployed a specially mustered 3,500-strong election police force for the vote. Among those running for the 81 seats in parliament are 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.
