The Senegalese began voting on Sunday to elect their fifth president in a vote with a completely unpredictable outcome, which will decide between continuity and perhaps radical change after three years of agitation and political crisis.
“We finally got there. Alhamdoulila (Praise be to God). Recent times have not been easy for Senegal which has experienced several upheavals.
But all that is behind us now,” says Mita Diop, a 51-year-old trader, in front of a polling station in Dakar.
Like the other voters, she chose from the 19 available ballots (including those of two candidates who withdrew) and, after passing through the voting booth, slipped her vote into the ballot box, then dipped her finger in the ballot box. red ink, a rule imposed to prevent voters from voting twice.
Dozens of voters calmly wait for their turn in front of this office installed in a school shaded by a few trees, as in front of the other offices where the AFP journalists were.
A number of voters who had woken up for the morning prayer of the month of fasting before daybreak then went straight to the polls.
The ballot boxes and ballots still bear the inscription “presidential election of February 25”, the date initially scheduled for the vote and whose last minute postponement triggered a serious political crisis.
Some 7.3 million voters are called to choose, in around 16,000 polling stations across the country and abroad, between the government candidate Amadou Ba and 16 competitors, including a woman as well as the anti-system Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
Amadou Ba, 62 years old, Prime Minister just a few weeks ago of outgoing President Macky Sall who appointed him as his heir apparent, and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 43 years old, the “candidate for system change” and “pan-Africanism left”, are given favorites. The first would keep the country on its trajectory. The victory of the second could herald a real systemic challenge.
They both claim to be able to win on Sunday without going through a second round, which seems likely but whose date has not been set. The former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall, 68, is cited as an outsider.
The offices are open until 6:00 p.m. (local and GMT). First unofficial provisional results could be published overnight.
The election is being followed closely, Senegal being considered one of the most stable countries in a West Africa shaken by putsch.
Dakar maintains strong relations with the West while Russia strengthens its surrounding positions.
Civil society, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the European Union are deploying hundreds of observers.
Senegalese people were initially scheduled to vote on February 25, but the postponement of the vote sparked violence that left four people dead. Several weeks of confusion tested Senegal’s democratic practice, until the date of March 24 was decided. The campaign was reduced to two weeks, in the middle of the Muslim fasting month.
The outgoing president, in charge for 12 years and largely re-elected in 2019, is not running for re-election.
“Win-win”
Amadou Ba presents himself as a continuation of his action and as a bulwark against “adventurers” and “amateurs”.
“We don’t need managers who need two years of apprenticeship (…) We need to consolidate what we have learned. We need to go even faster and further,” he said during his last meeting on Friday.
It promises to create a million jobs in five years. However, he must assume the legacy of President Sall, persistent poverty, high unemployment, heavy debt, the departure by canoe of thousands of people each year for Europe, and the hundreds of arrests in recent times.
Since 2021, the country has experienced episodes of unrest caused by the standoff between Ousmane Sonko, guide of candidate Diomaye Faye, combined with social tensions and the vagueness long maintained by President Sall over his candidacy for a third term. The crisis continued with the postponement of the presidential election.
Dozens of people were killed and hundreds arrested, damaging the country’s image, unfairly according to the government.
Possible tensions
MM. Sonko and Faye, detained for months, were released on March 14 after the campaign opened. Mr. Sonko, disqualified from the presidential election, put himself at the service of his second Mr. Faye.
Much less popular and charismatic than Mr. Sonko, Mr. Faye assured during a final rally on Friday that he was “ready” to become president. He and Mr. Sonko attack Mr. Ba as the perpetuator of President Sall’s governance and as a “billionaire civil servant”.
Coming like Mr. Ba from the senior tax administration, Mr. Faye questions the origin of his former colleague’s fortune.
Mr. Faye promised on Friday a “refoundation” of Senegal, a popular project in neighboring countries. His program plans to renegotiate mining and hydrocarbon contracts and defense agreements. He and Mr. Sonko worked to reassure foreign investors. Senegal could join the circle of gas and oil producers in 2024.
SOURCE: AFP
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