2024-02-26 12:18:28
Senegalese President Macky Sall is bringing together a number of political and social actors this Monday, February 26, to try to forge an agreement on the date of the presidential election. But major protagonists have announced that they will boycott the discussions.
Macky Sall gave himself two days, Monday and Tuesday, to find a way out of the crisis the country is going through, one of the most serious in 64 years of independence, since he decreed on February 3 the postponement of the presidential election which was to be held on Sunday.
He invites this “dialogue” in Diamniadio, a new town regarding thirty kilometers from the capital Dakar, the candidates selected in January by the Constitutional Council, those who were disqualified (the “failed”), representatives of civil society, religious and customary leaders, indicated the presidency.
Read: in Senegal, the reopening of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, a gesture of appeasement?
President Sall, elected in 2012 and re-elected in 2019, is not a candidate. But he insists on the divisions that he believes the pre-electoral process has created and the need to “reconciliation” for the freely vaunted stability of his country. He is aiming for a “consensus” at the end of consultations which, he said Thursday, will focus on a new date, but also on following April 2, the official date of the end of his mandate.
16 of the 19 selected candidates will not participate
Either the participants agree on a date and he will “immediately” publish a decree summoning the voters, or he will refer the matter to the Constitutional Council, for it to decide, he said Thursday.
Only 16 of the 19 candidates selected by the Constitutional Council said they would not participate. The Aar Sunu Election collective (“Let’s preserve our election”), which calls for more than a hundred organizations and personalities united once morest the postponement, as well as other citizen platforms, did the same.
They form a vast front which demands that the election take place as quickly as possible, and before April 2. Some of them are worried regarding the consequences of a vacancy in the presidency without established succession. President Macky Sall himself expressed doubts regarding the feasibility of an election before his departure.
Others accuse him of playing for time, either to advantage his side because things would look bad for him in the presidential election, or to cling to power beyond April 2. They fear that the “dialogue” will be used to re-examine the applications.
One of the main beneficiaries of starting the process from scratch would be the “failed” Karim Wade, son and minister of former president Abdoulaye Wade. His fight once morest his disqualification set in motion the chain which led to the postponement of the election, thanks to an unexpected alliance between the president’s camp and that of Karim Wade.
First day of university
The Constitutional Council finally vetoed the postponement. He noted the impossibility of maintaining the presidential election on February 25 and asked the authorities to organize it “as soon as possible”.
A spokesperson for Karim Wade’s party confirmed the participation of its representatives in the “dialogue”, the modalities of which are unknown. Karim Wade himself lives in exile.
Before the official opening at 4:00 p.m. (local and GMT), the president invited the qualified candidates at 11:00 a.m. and the “failed” ones at 12:00 p.m.
“We have decided not to respond to this invitation in this format”said Sunday one of the main candidates, Khalifa Sall, following taking part with others in a mock vote to materialize the fact that, for the first time in more than 40 years, the Senegalese would not vote on the date scheduled for the end of February.
“We think that the actors are the 19 candidates selected by the Constitutional Council (…) it is with them (only) that the consultation should take place”, he said.
President Macky Sall justified the postponement of the presidential election by his fear that a contested vote would provoke new outbreaks of violence following those experienced in 2021 and 2023.
The opposition denounced a “constitutional coup”. Repressed demonstrations left four dead and led to dozens of arrests.
Macky Sall affirms his desire for appeasement. The Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (Ucad), a hotbed of protest, reopens Monday following months of closure following political unrest. Hundreds of opponents have been released over the past 10 days.
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