Togo announces elections will be held by early 2024

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, which denounced "irregularities" in the census.

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

Togo's opposition on Tuesday disputed an electoral register validated by an international organisation, saying it still feared fraud in the upcoming poll.

"This is another trick to reinforce electoral fraud with certification by the OIF," Eric Dupuy, spokesperson for the opposition National Alliance for Change (ANC), told AFP.

READ | Steady growth linked to the G20-inspired Compact with Africa initiative

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.