Senegal is experiencing a political earthquake. Shortly after the closing of the polling stations for the presidential election on Sunday March 24, the first estimates gave a large lead to Bassirou Diomaye Faye, candidate of the rupture, who advocates a radical change of system. The challenge now is to know whether he will manage to obtain an absolute majority in the first round or whether he will have to face a second round – the date of which is not fixed – against Amadou Ba, the former prime minister, successor to the outgoing president, Macky Sall. Provisional departmental results must be given Tuesday evening at the latest and the Dakar Court of Appeal has until Friday evening to proclaim the national figures.
But already, the arrival at the top of Bassirou Diomaye Faye is a tour de force that few had predicted. The vote, which took place after a last minute postponement and a lightning campaign, looked uncertain. The right arm of Ousmane Sonko, the leader of the African Patriots of Senegal party for work, ethics and fraternity (Pastef), dissolved in July 2023 by the government, was little known to the general public until a year ago , and owes its popularity to the dubbing of its leader, alongside whom he left prison just ten days before the election. He had been imprisoned for “attack on state security” after having denounced the political exploitation of justice with regard to his mentor.
The voters were not mistaken. “ Sonko moy Diomaye, Diomaye moy Sonko » (Sonko is Diomaye, Diomaye is Sonko, in Wolof) his supporters shouted in the streets of Dakar shortly after the closing of the polling stations where 7.3 million voters were called during the day. As soon as the first trends were published on social networks, a sudden excitement brought the capital out of its torpor. Drumming on pots and pans, dozens of people, many of them young people and women, shouted their joy and danced on the side of the roads.
Scores dribbled away
“I feel very content, happy and satisfied because the trends seem to show that we are moving on to the first round. And even if we go to the second round, we will win”assures Bouba, a 35-year-old architect who is part of the group of “patriotic bikers” who accompanied Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s electoral caravan across the country and who came to follow the results at his candidate’s headquarters where the scores were dribbled out on a giant screen.
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