2024-01-21 06:24:32
Less than two months before the election, the Constitutional Council of Senegal published on Saturday the final list of 20 candidates for the February 25 presidential election, a list on which the name of the opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko, does not appear. The Karim Wade candidacy was deemed “inadmissible”.
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The list includes the candidate of the presidential camp, Prime Minister Amadou Bâ, the former heads of government and opponents Idrissa Seck and Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall and Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, presented as the replacement candidate by Ousmane Sonko.
Mr. Faye, 43, a member of Ousmane Sonko’s dissolved party, is also detained, but he has not yet been tried. He has been in prison since April 2023 for “contempt of court” and “defamation once morest a corporate body” following a message published on Facebook.
Sonko’s candidacy dismissed
Ousmane Sonko, central figure in a standoff lasting more than two years with the State which gave rise to several episodes of deadly unrest, does not appear on the list, as was expected. Popular among young people, he was among the favorites in the presidential election.
The Council, following a last appeal by Ousmane Sonko, rejected his candidacy due to a final sentence for defamation to six months in prison suspended on January 4, a case which pitted him once morest a minister member of the presidential camp.
Read alsoSenegal “headed towards an inclusive presidential election” despite the sponsorship barrier
In two other cases, Mr. Sonko was found guilty in June of debauchery of a minor and sentenced to two years in prison, then imprisoned at the end of July on other charges, including calling for insurrection, criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise and attack on state security, a pending case.
Ousmane Sonko denounced a plot to prevent him from participating in the presidential election of February 2024, which the government denies.
Application deemed “inadmissible” for Karim Wade
The opponent Karim Wade, son and minister of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012), is absent from the list due to a candidacy deemed “irreceivable” because of his dual French and Senegalese nationality, according to the Advice.
Any candidate for the presidency “must be exclusively of Senegalese nationality, enjoy their civil and political rights, be at least 35 years old and at most 75 years old on election day,” says the Constitution. He must also know how to write, read and speak the official language, French, fluently.
Karim Wade, born in France to a Senegalese father and a mother of French origin, produced a sworn declaration dated December 21 according to which he has exclusively Senegalese nationality, the Council indicated.
Read alsoSenegal: Karim Wade renounced his French nationality
However, the document of proof that he presented was a decree dated January 16 published the following day in the Official Journal of the French Republic. The court considers that the effects of the decree confirming Karim Wade’s loss of his French nationality “are not retroactive” and that his sworn declaration was “inexact” at the time of its filing.
Karim Wade was pleased on Wednesday, in a message published on his X account, that the quarrel over his dual nationality “is finally over”. “The decree of the French Minister of the Interior recording my renunciation of French nationality is further proof of my constancy,” he said.
Former minister Thierno Alassane Sall, himself a candidate, filed an appeal on Monday once morest Karim Wade’s candidacy, deeming it unconstitutional.
Two women candidates
The list published by the Constitutional Council includes two women, Rose Wardini, gynecologist and civil society actress, and entrepreneur Anta Babacar Ngom.
With less than a month and a half to go, there is total uncertainty as to the outcome of the two-round election. Senegal is organizing a presidential election for the first time without the participation of the outgoing president.
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