Editing History of Togo (section)

===National Assembly elections===
The second multi-party legislative elections of Eyadéma's 33-year rule were held on 21 March 1999. However, the opposition [[election boycott|boycotted the election]], in which the ruling party won 79 of the 81 seats in the National Assembly. Those two seats went to candidates from little-known independent parties. Procedural problems and significant fraud, particularly misrepresentation of voter turnout, marred the legislative elections. 
After the legislative election, the government announced that it would continue to pursue dialog with the opposition. In June 1999, the RPT and opposition parties met in Paris, in the presence of facilitators representing France, Germany, the [[European Union]], and [[La Francophonie]] (an international organization of French-speaking countries), to agree on security measures for formal negotiations in Lomé. In July 1999, the government and the opposition began discussions, and on 29 July 1999, all sides signed an accord called the "[[Lomé Framework Agreement]]", which included a pledge by President Eyadéma that he would respect the constitution and not seek another term as president after his current one expires in 2003. The accord also called for the negotiation of a legal status for opposition leaders, as well as for former heads of state (such as their immunity from prosecution for acts in office). In addition, the accord addressed the rights and duties of political parties and the media, the safe return of refugees, and the security of all citizens. The accord also contained a provision for compensating victims of political violence. The President also agreed to dissolve the National Assembly in March and hold new legislative elections, which would be supervised by an independent national election commission ({{Interlanguage link multi|Independent National Electoral Commission (Togo)|fr|3=Commission électorale nationale indépendante (Togo)|lt=CENI}}) and which would use the single-ballot method to protect against some of the abuses of past elections. However, the March 2000 date passed without presidential action, and new legislative elections were ultimately rescheduled for October 2001. Because of funding problems and disagreements between the government and opposition, the elections were again delayed, this time until March 2002.

In May 2002 the government scrapped CENI, blaming the opposition for its inability to function. In its stead, the government appointed seven magistrates to oversee preparations for legislative elections. Not surprisingly, the opposition announced it would boycott them. Held in October, as a result of the opposition's boycott the government party won more than two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. In December 2002, Eyadéma's government used this rubber-stamp parliament to amend Togo's constitution, allowing President Eyadéma to run for an “unlimited” number of terms. A further amendment stated that candidates must reside in the country for at least 12 months before an election, a provision that barred the participation in the upcoming presidential election of popular [[Union des Forces du Progrès]] (UFC) candidate, Gilchrist Olympio, who had been in exile since 1992. The presidential election was held 1 June. President Eyadéma was re-elected with 57% of the votes, amid allegations of widespread vote rigging.