Senegal: Presidential Candidates Unite in Call for New Election Date

Facts

• Fifteen of the 20 opposition candidates cleared to run in Senegal's postponed February presidential elections have demanded in a letter published Monday that President Macky Sall hold new elections and leave office no later than April 2, the day his term expires.¹
• The 15 complained that authorities had not taken any action to set a new voting date following the Constitutional Council's ruling that the election postponement was unlawful. They also demanded that the list of the 20 candidates approved in January remain unchanged.²
• Prime Minister Amadou Ba, the presidential candidate, did not support the call for an election no later than April 2, even though some of the leading candidates, including the imprisoned anti-establishment candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye and the former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, had signed it.³
• Last week, Senegal's president announced that the postponed poll for his successor will be held 'as soon as possible' after the country's Constitutional Council ruled that the election postponement was unconstitutional. The top court ruled that Sall may not remain in office beyond the end of his second term.⁴
• However, on Saturday, thousands of Senegalese citizens took to the streets again in a fresh round of protests in the capital Dakar in opposition to President Sall's decision. While the demonstrations remained peaceful, previous protests against the postponement had ended in violence and been banned.⁵
• On February 3, President Macky Sall announced the postponement of presidential elections slated for February 25 in the West African country, considered a stable democracy by many analysts. Of the 79 contenders who submitted their candidacy, only 20 were officially admitted to the election.⁶

Sources: ¹RFI, ²Yahoo News, ³Peoples Gazette Nigeria, ⁴BBC News, ⁵France 24 and ⁶Dw.Com.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Al Jazeera. Following the country's Constitutional Council's disqualification of prominent candidates over failures to meet the requirements for candidacy, occurred a disagreement over the list of eligible candidates, necessitating the postponement of the election. Additionally, an opposition party in the National Assembly, not the president, proposed the postponement. The Senegalese president has already made it clear that he does not seek a third term, and his commitment to hold the elections as soon as possible suggests that he will stick to his pledge.
• Narrative B, as provided by Africanews. The Senegalese president's unprecedented decision to postpone the presidential elections was illegal and has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis. Macky Sall's crackdown on the protests and his attempt to delay the transfer of power amounted to an institutional coup and damaged Senegal's reputation as a democratic model for West Africa. All remaining political prisoners must immediately be released and the government must now enter into talks with the opposition to set a concrete election date before April 2.

Predictions