In Senegal, citizens are still waiting for a new date for the presidential election, which was initially set for Sunday 25 February. After postponing the vote, ultimately invalidated by the Constitutional Council, President Mackie Sale this Monday afternoon launched a national dialogue to find a way out of the crisis. It was in Diamniadio, about thirty kilometers from Dakar, that the opening ceremony of the dialogue took place, and Mackie Sale made the first announcement.
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With our special correspondent Diamniadio, Thea Olivier
Around 7:30 pm (6:30 pm UT), the president Mackey Cell had just finished his opening speech. The big announcement was an amnesty project that will be proposed on Wednesday, which will concern facts related to political demonstrations occurring between 2021 and 2024. The goal is to pacify the Senegalese political space.
In his speech, the head of state also made it clear that the objective of the dialogue was to find a polling date as soon as possible, that is before the rainy season that starts between the months of June and July.
After an early morning private audience, the actors present paraded on the podium. Successful or unsuccessful presidential candidates, political parties, civil society, religious and traditional leaders, all defended their positions regarding the resumption of the electoral process and the polling date.
But there are also key absentees: 17 of the 19 candidates chosen by the Constitutional Council boycotted the dialogue, including Abdoulaye Wade’s former prime minister, Idrissa Sek. Sixteen of them appealed to the Constitutional Council early in the morning to press for a vote to be held before April 2, the date that marks the end of President Mackie Sale’s mandate.
Also readPresidential election in Senegal: “The lost time must be taken into account to set a new date”
