Togo Announces Elections Will be held by Early 2024, Opposition Fears Unfair Vote

Togo's next legislative and regional elections will be held "no later than the end of the first quarter of 2024," the government announced Monday.

The proposed timeline pushes back the promise President Faure Gnassingbe made in December last year to hold polls within 12 months.

The last legislative and regional elections, in 2018, were boycotted by the opposition, because of what it called irregularities in the census.

This time, the opposition hopes to challenge the ruling Union for the Republic (UNIR) party and has called for a voter registration surge.

Togo's opposition said it fears an unfair vote after the government pushed back its timeline for parliamentary elections, the coordinator of the main coalition told the French news agency AFP on Tuesday.

Brigitte Adjamagbo-Johnson, coordinator of the DMP coalition of opposition parties, said the turnaround "does not seem realistic to us given everything that needs to be done before genuinely transparent and democratic elections."

She called for the renewal of the electoral commission's mandate and fairer constituency boundaries, among other reforms.

Togo's head of state has been in power since 2005, after the death of his father — General Eyadema Gnassingbe — who ruled the country for 38 years.

Since coming to office, Faure Gnassingbe has won every election — though the opposition has disputed those results.
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