Elections in Togo take place within the framework of a presidential system. Both the President and the National Assembly are directly elected by voters. Togo is a one party dominant state with the Union for the Republic in power. Electoral history Following World War II, the territory began to elect members to the French National Assembly. The first of these elections took place on 21 October 1945, with French Togoland and neighbouring Dahomey combined into a single constituency. Two MPs were elected using separate electoral colleges for French citizens and Africans. A by-election was held in February 1946 after the MP elected by the First College (French citizens) died in December 1945, with a second full election for the combined constituency held in June 1946. By the November 1946 elections, Togo had become a single-member seat, and Martin Aku of the Committee of Togolese Unity (CUT) was elected. A Representative Council was established in the same period and was first elected in December 1946. The CUT emerged as the largest party, winning 14 of the 24 seats in the Second College. French National Assembly elections were held again in 1951, with the result being a reversal of the November 1946 elections, Nicolas Grunitzky of the Togolese Party of Progress (PTP) defeating Aku. Representative Assembly elections were held later in the year and saw the CUT reduced to a single seat, with the Union of Chiefs and Peoples of the North (UPCN) and its sister party the PTP winning 23 of the 24 Seconcd College seats. Due to political restructuring of the territory, a Territorial Assembly was created shortly afterwards and elections held in March 1952; the UPCN won half of the 30 seats, with the CUT–Juvento alliance winning nine and the PTP six. In the 1955 elections the UPCN and PTP won 15 of the 30 seats each, with the CUT boycotting the vote. The following year Grunitzky ran unopposed for the French National Assembly seat. Parliamentary elections in 1958 led to a victory for the CUT, which won 29 of the 46 seats. General elections were held in 1961, the first time the country's president had been directly elected. Sylvanus Olympio of the Party of Togolese Unity (PUT, the renamed CUT) was the only candidate, whilst the PUT was the only party to put forward candidates in the National Assembly election, winning all 52 seats. Following a coup in