Parliamentarians probe controversial postponement of presidential election

The debate promises to be heated. Senegalese deputies scrutinize a controversial bill to postpone presidential elections announced by head of state Macky Sell on Monday 5 February, a day after clashes between protesters and police in Dakar. The text would postpone the vote for a maximum of six months and its approval, which requires a three-fifths majority of the 165 deputies, is not certain. Voting is scheduled to take place late in the morning.

Mackie Sale announced on Saturday, a few hours before the start of election campaigning, that he had signed a decree postponing the presidential election that was to be held on February 25. It is the first time since 1963 that a presidential election has been postponed by direct universal suffrage in Senegal, a country that has never experienced a coup, a rarity on the continent.

Several dozen applications were rejected

The announcement caused an uproar and raised fears of a fever attack in a country known as an island of stability in West Africa, but which has been going through various episodes of deadly unrest since 2021. It was against this background that the suspension of voting was announced. Conflict between the National Assembly and the Constitutional Council, which recognized twenty candidates in January, a record, but rejected several dozen others. Two opposition leaders were excluded: Osmane Sonko, in prison since July, and Karim Wade, minister and son of former President Abdoulaye Wade (2000–2012).

The president of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, called on the Senegalese on Monday for their reconciliation. “Political Disputes through Consultation, Understanding and Dialogue”.