Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe on Wednesday signed a decree to set the election date on Feb. 28, 2010.
The decision was arrived at after discussions and adoption by the cabinet which was chaired by the Togolese head of state.
The presidential decree was signed when the Togolese ruling party and the opposition sharply disagreed on the mode of election without a solution. The opposition is demanding a two-round mode of election, while the ruling party insists on a one-mode pattern.
The electoral process goes ahead after the Dec. 14 kick-off of the exercise to review the voter list.
The February 2010 election will mark the end of the first term of Gnassingbe who came to power at the end of a hotly contested election in
April 2005. It is being presented as another test to his regime after the organization of violence free legislative elections in October 2007. These
elections led to the normalization of relations between Togo with its main development partners, who had suspended cooperation with Togo in 2003 due to what they termed as "lack of democracy."