UPDATE: Voting ends in Senegal's presidential election
Dakar, Senegal (PANA) - Voting has officially ended in Senegal's delayed presidential election on Sunday to choose the successor of President Macky Sall, whose second and final term ends on 2 April after 12 years in power.
Long queues formed at polling stations across the country on Sunday as an estimated 7.3 million registered voters cast their votes from 0800-1800 GMT.
The president of the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA), Abdoulaye Sylla, welcomed the high voter turnout.
''We toured the departments of Dakar and what we noticed at first glance is that the level of attendance is very high at 42% halfway through in the offices we visited. We are delighted with this high turnout and we hope that the pace will be maintained for the rest of the day," the Senegalese Press Agency (APS) quoted him as saying.
There were 19 candidates, including a woman, Anta Babacar Ngom, 40, on the ballot. However, APS reported on Saturday that two of them stepped down for the main opposition candidate, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, 44.
No incidents have been reported.
The head of the European Union Observation Mission, Malin Bjork, said voting started on time and has been calm in several centres.
“Our partial conclusion of the vote is that it is taking place in a calm and orderly manner,” she told journalists.
The main issues during the campaign were the economy and jobs, as many Senegalese complained about hardships.
Counting will be held at the polling stations immediately and the polling station results announced. Collation will be held after that and national results are expected to be announced in a few days.
President Sall, who voted at the Thierno Mamadou Sall Centre at his hometown, Fatick, urged his compatriots to vote peacefully.
The Minister of the Interior, Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé, after casting his ballot, also called on Senegalese to vote “in peace, calm and serenity”, adding that "a day of voting must ... not be a day of tension and violence".
Under Senegal's constitution, the winner in the first round should obtain 50% + 1 of the votes. Otherwise, the two frontrunners will go into a run-off.
The vote is coming as Senegal came from the brink following political developments after President Sall's decree postponing the election, originally scheduled for 25 February. The decree led to street protests in which at least three people died.
President Sall had issued the decree postponing the election citing suspicions of corruption concerning some magistrates who examined the applications of 93 people to contest the vote.
Parliament then voted to delay the election until 15 December in a chaotic session during which security forces removed opposition lawmakers. The Constitutional Court's declaration of Parliament's vote unconstitutional calmed the political tension.
The main candidates are former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, 62, who is being fielded by President Sall's Alliance for the Republic, APR and opposition leader Faye.
Last Friday, former President Abdoulaye Wade’s Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS) announced that it is joining Faye in the election, giving a new dimension to the vote.
The Constitutional Council had disqualified Karim Wade, the PDS’s flagbearer and the former President’s son, from the race over his dual citizenship.
The Supreme Court also rejected his bid to cancel or delay the vote beyond 24 March.
The PDS, in a surprise move, declared its support for Faye, whom popular opposition leader Ousmane Sonko has chosen as his preferred candidate following his disqualification after conviction for “misleading” Senegalese youths.
Both men are beneficiaries of a recent general amnesty announced by President Sall.
The regional bloc, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), deployed 130 Long-term and Short-term observers led by Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, Nigeria's former Foreign Minister and United Nations Under-Secretary General, to monitor the electoral processes. They were joined by Short-Term observers.
There are several bodies observing the election.
President Sall has repeatedly said he would leave office at the end of his mandate on 2 April, saying he has refused "to be tempted by a third term" after being in power for 12 years.
-0- PANA MA 24March2024
