Togo will hold its first local elections in 32 years on Sunday -- during which one family has ruled the West African nation -- with some opposition parties taking part after boycotting last year's parliamentary polls.
Some 8,000 police and security forces will be deployed across the country as voters elect more than 1,500 local councillors for the first time in a generation.
The elections come two months after Togo's parliament approved a constitutional change allowing President Faure Gnassingbe to run two more times and potentially remain in post until 2030.
Gnassingbe took power in 2005 after succeeding his father Gnassingbe Eyadema, who seized control of the tiny country of 8 million in a coup in 1967, seven years after independence.
The local election vote was described as a hard-fought step forward by a spokesperson for one of the main opposition parties, the National Alliance for Change (ANC).
"The government has always refused to hold local elections, and today, with the pressure of the international community, it is resolving to organise them," the spokesperson said.
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He accused the ruling party Union for the Republic (UNIR) of managing the country in "a family way: all for us, nothing for the people".
"In some parts of the country, we don't even have water to drink," he said.
The previous councillors elected in local elections in Togo governed for 14 years from 1987 -- despite being elected on five-year terms.
Councillors were later replaced with "special delegations", tasked with organising new elections, whose positions were often filled with figures hand-picked by the government.
"Local elections were not the priority both for the leaders in power and the opposition," said political scientist Pascal Edoh Agbove.
"They put more emphasis on the presidential and legislative elections."