LOME, Togo (AP) – Demonstrators protested against Togo’s new president on Sunday, lighting flaming barricades in the capital’s streets and throwing rocks at riot police who fired tear gas to keep crowds from moving toward government buildings.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched toward central Lome’s administrative offices from the opposition stronghold of Be, where burning truck tires closed roads. Security forces turned the marchers back with tear gas when they began throwing stones.

Unlike earlier demonstrations in the country’s three-week crisis, no gunfire was heard. There was no immediate word of casualties.

Demonstrators said the unannounced march was prompted by anger at Friday’s selection of Bonfoh Abbass as interim president of Togo until nationwide elections can be held in the coming months.

Abbass, the deputy speaker of parliament, was named interim president in a special session of Congress after Faure Gnassingbe stepped down only weeks after the military installed him as president upon the death of his father, Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled as strongman for nearly four decades.

Demonstrators said the succession was unconstitutional. The law, they claimed, should have gone to the parliament speaker – a ruling-party loyalist who was fired after he refused to return to the country in the early days of the crisis.

Gnassingbe had been under growing pressure from the United States, the United Nations and west African leaders to resign since he was installed Feb. 5 to replace his father, who ruled the country for 38 years and was Africa’s longest-serving leader.

Four protesters died in clashes with security forces during riots in the week after Gnassingbe’s appointment. Togo had banned all political activity immediately after Eyadema’s death, saying it wanted to preserve calm for national mourning, but lifted the ban last week – 45 days ahead of schedule.

Togo, a former French colony which gained independence in 1960, has an annual per capita income of $270 from an economy based on cocoa, coffee production and mining. The country sits between Ghana and Benin on the Gulf of Guinea on the west coast of Africa.

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