Fifteen of the twenty candidates authorized to run in Senegal’s postponed presidential elections have come together to demand that the poll take place before April 2nd, which is President Macky Sall’s last day in office.
Notable candidates including Bassirou Diomaye Faye and former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall urged that the candidate list stay the same and stressed the significance of following the election timeline.
The nation’s top court declared that President Sall’s plan to postpone the elections for several months in order to settle disagreements about candidate eligibility was illegal. Sall said that he was determined to set up the elections “as soon as possible.”
Protests have broken out in Dakar in response to these developments, with participants calling on President Sall to speed up the election process. Rallying in the hundreds, demonstrators chanted anti-authoritarian slogans against Sall and called for the release of opposition leaders who were detained.
Conflicts between protestors and security personnel resulted from the presidential election’s postponement, which was first set for February 25. Senegal’s democratic standards must be upheld, and this was made clear by the Constitutional Council’s decision to reject the delay.
The public’s discontent has not decreased despite President Sall’s denial of allegations that he intended to extend his term, as pressure from both domestic and foreign sources continues to build for an expedient resolution to the political deadlock.
In a social media post, the U.S. Bureau of African Affairs praised the Constitutional Council’s ruling and emphasized the significance of reestablishing Senegal’s democratic trajectory through a prompt electoral process.
