Togo goes to the polls to pick new president

Voting stations opened in Togo on Thursday for a presidential poll, which is seen as a test of democratic progress in a nation notorious for electoral violence. More than three million people are expected to cast their votes for one of seven candidates, including incumbent president Faure Gnassingbé, son of the late veteran dictatorGnassingbé Eyadéma.

Reuters

Polling stations opened at 07.00 GMT and will close 10 hours later.

Campaigning for the poll ended peacefully on Tuesday, in contrast with the violence of the 2005 election run-up.

Faure, a former mines minister and financial adviser under his father, is seeking a second-term mandate but the opposition dismisses him as the candidate of a regime  that they claim has blocked development for the past 43 years.

His father ruled Togo unchallenged for 38 years before he took over.

One of Faure's toughest challengers is Jean-Pierre Fabre, an economist from the Union of Forces of Change (UFC), the main party of the divided opposition.