A rumor that hangs around for months, two final hours of suspense on the screens of public television and an announcement that has the effect of a thunderclap. A few hours before the opening of the electoral campaign, the President of the Republic, Macky Sall, announced on Saturday the postponement of the presidential election in Senegal. It was to be held on February 25. “My solemn commitment not to run for office remains unchangedhowever insisted Mr. Sall. I will initiate an open national dialogue in order to create the conditions for free, transparent and inclusive elections in a peaceful and reconciled Senegal. »
Three weeks before the deadline, the Head of State has, however, given no voting date, leaving control to the National Assembly whose office validated on Saturday morning a bill to postpone the election. six-month election. He had earlier set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry to clarify the candidate selection process. The text has every chance of being voted on, because the presidential majority and the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), which support the initiative, represent more than three quarters of the elected representatives of the Assembly.
The political crisis began with the exclusion of Karim Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012), from the presidential race. At issue, according to the Constitutional Council: the late renunciation of one’s French nationality while being exclusively Senegalese is one of the conditions for running. However, the PDS candidate and the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall, excluded from the presidential election in 2019 following legal convictions, had negotiated through the intermediary of the religious leaders of Touba and Tivaouane the possibility of finding their eligibility by participating in the national dialogue launched by Macky Sall in June 2023. Two months later, the Assembly voted for their reinstatement on the lists.
“A bad signal”
“The power camp was surprised by the non-qualification of Karim Wade. For the president, there is this bitter feeling of giving the impression of having broken his word to religious leaders. The authorities do not understand how, at the same time, the judges validated the candidacy of Bassirou Diomaye Faye [le plan B de l’opposant Ousmane Sonko, dont la candidature a été rejetée] whose party was nevertheless dissolved”explains a source close to the president.
Quickly after the publication, on January 20, of the final list of candidates validated by the Constitutional Council, Karim Wade’s camp denounced cases of corruption and conflicts of interest concerning two judges of the body supposed to arbitrate the electoral process . The parliamentary commission of inquiry is supposed to shed light on the process of verification and validation of candidacies in the presidential election. Added to this was the placement in police custody on Friday of Rose Wardini, candidate for the Senegal Nouveau party, suspected of being Franco-Senegalese and therefore of having transmitted a false declaration to the Constitutional Council. “The president has no other option than to plead for a postponement, because the council is discredited. What legitimacy could he have to declare the results if his judges were corrupt? »justifies the same source close to the president.
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