MPs look into the controversial postponement of the presidential election

The debate promises to be heated. The day after clashes between opponents and the police in Dakar, Senegalese deputies examine on Monday February 5 a controversial bill on the postponement of the presidential election announced by the head of state Macky Sall. This text would postpone the vote for a maximum of six months and its approval, which requires a three-fifths majority of the 165 deputies, is not certain. The vote is scheduled for late morning.

Macky Sall announced on Saturday, a few hours before the opening of the electoral campaign, that he had signed a decree postponing the presidential election which was to take place on February 25. This is the first time since 1963 that a presidential election by direct universal suffrage has been postponed in Senegal, a country which has never experienced a coup d’état, a rarity on the continent.

Several dozen applications rejected

This announcement raised an outcry and raised fears of an attack of fever in a country known to be an island of stability in West Africa, but which has gone through various episodes of deadly unrest since 2021. The postponement of the vote was announced on background to the conflict between the National Assembly and the Constitutional Council, which validated twenty candidacies in January, a record, but rejected several dozen others. Two opposition leaders were excluded: Ousmane Sonko, in prison since July, and Karim Wade, minister and son of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012).

The president of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, on Monday called on the Senegalese to settle their “political dispute through consultation, understanding and dialogue”.