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A show of force without overflow. On Wednesday June 8, the Senegalese opposition gathered thousands of people in Dakar to protest against the rejection of its national list in the legislative elections of July 31 and to denounce the intention attributed to President Macky Sall to run for a third term in 2024.
The demonstration – at high risk after the violence of March 2021 which left a dozen dead – took place in a good-natured atmosphere according to AFP. The main Senegalese opponent, Ousmane Sonko, excluded from the upcoming ballot, was greeted with cheers by the crowd gathered on the Place de la Nation. “Today we are launching our pre-campaign, did he declare. Our only enemy is Macky Sall. »
The demonstrators denounced the decision taken on Friday by the Constitutional Court to confirm an order of the Ministry of the Interior judging “inadmissible” the national list of holders of the main opposition coalition Yewwi Askan Wi, led by Ousmane Sonko, and with which other leaders such as Aïda Mbodj and Cheikh Tidiane Youm are associated. Reason: the coalition had twice invested the same candidate, Anta Touré, as holder and substitute.
“Unfair decision”
For the opposition, at the origin of the appeal to the Elders, the Court’s verdict aims to eliminate Ousmane Sonko, who came third in the 2019 presidential election and declared candidate for that of 2024. A suspicion that is all the more significant as the Directorate General of Elections (DGE) is placed under the authority of the Minister of the Interior, Antoine Félix Diome, reputed to be close to President Macky Sall.
” Faced with an error, the judges chose to obey the one who appoints them, the President of the Republic, to lead this cabal against the opposition. They could have rejected the problematic application and not the list. It’s an iniquitous decision that torpedoes the law », Storm Déthié Fall, placed in seventh position on the national list and representative of the Yewwi Askan Wi coalition. Like the other rejected candidates, he will be replaced by his alternate.
On July 31, the Senegalese will elect 150 deputies according to a method that mixes proportional voting with national lists for 53 parliamentarians, and majority voting in the departments for 97 others. The diaspora elects 15 deputies.
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