(Dakar) The Senegalese should finally elect their fifth president at the end of March after a sudden acceleration of events on Wednesday in the serious political crisis caused by the last minute postponement of the vote.
A degree of confusion, however, persists over the precise date, with the presidency announcing that 1er The tour would take place on March 24, with the Constitutional Council setting it for March 31.
The election would take place in any case before the expiration of President Macky Sall’s mandate on April 2, one of the essential elements of the crisis, a broad front of the opposition and civil society suspecting Mr. Sall of seeking to cling to power.
A second round, probable in the current state of candidacies, but for which no date has been communicated, would be held before or after the 2nd. However, a decision of the Constitutional Council published on Wednesday says that, to the extent that the first turn would take place before the end of the mandate, President Sall would remain in his post until the installation of his successor.
Another reason for tension, the competition will have to pit the 19 competitors whose list the Constitutional Council has already validated, said the Constitutional Council in a separate decision. The seven “Wise Men” rejected the re-examination of this list, recommended to the Head of State at the end of a “national dialogue”.
On this list is the anti-system candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who has been detained since April 2023. For him, however, the question of a possible amnesty, approved the same day by the National Assembly, arises.
“Setting the date of the election beyond the duration of the mandate of the President of the Republic in office is contrary to the Constitution,” wrote the “Sages”.
The Wise Men said they were replacing the executive, given the latter’s “inertia” in determining the date.
The Senegalese presidency noted this sudden change in the calendar by announcing in the evening that Prime Minister Amadou Ba was “released” from his post to lead the campaign. He is replaced by Interior Minister Sidiki Kaba, a spokesperson said.
The Constitutional Council has been referred to the Constitutional Council since Monday for its opinion by President Sall himself. The head of state submitted recommendations resulting from a “national dialogue” that he had convened last week to try to get out of the crisis caused by the postponement of the presidential election, one of the most serious in recent years. decades.
President Sall caused a shock in a country presented as one of the most stable in West Africa shaken by power grabs by decreeing on February 3 the postponement of the election scheduled for February 25.
The “national dialogue” was one of the elements of President Macky Sall’s response to the crisis.
The other was a bill for amnesty for acts linked to political violence in recent years, a text that has been widely criticized even though it is supposed to dissipate tensions.
After debating all day and observing a pause visibly prolonged by the unexpected turn of events, the deputies approved by 94 votes for and 49 against this text decried by its detractors as sheltering the perpetrators of serious acts, including homicides.
The project provides amnesty for all offenses or crimes, whether tried or not, committed between 1er February 2021 and February 25, 2024 and “relating to demonstrations or having political motivations”.
Between 2021 and 2023, Senegal experienced various episodes of riots, clashes, ransacking and looting triggered in particular by the standoff between opponent Ousmane Sonko and the government.
In February, Senegal was plagued by further unrest after the announcement of the postponement of the election.
Dozens of people have been killed since 2021, hundreds injured, hundreds more arrested.
The question of the application of amnesty to Ousmane Sonko and his possible return to the saddle in the electoral race agitated the political class. The decisions of the Constitutional Council seem to rule out a return of Mr. Sonko to the competition.
Mr. Sonko, third in the presidential election in 2019 and declared candidate in 2024, has been detained since July 2023 and was disqualified from the presidential election in which he was one of the favorites.
The amnesty could, however, pave the way for his release from prison as well as that of his number two, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, designated to replace him by their party and who could lead a campaign as his supporters are clamoring for in the name of equality between candidates.
The latest in a series of amnesties approved since Independence, this one, without being specific, could mean the release of dozens of opponents.
The presidency justified the amnesty by the need to “appease the political and social climate”.
The law “has the sole objective of reconciliation […] President Macky Sall is not hiding any bad intentions,” assured Farba Ngom, deputy of the presidential camp, during the debate.
But many political and social actors stood up against the project, expressing indignation that no member of the security forces or any government official would be held accountable.
“This law is a license to continue to assassinate the Senegalese. Amnesty law, amnesia law: not in my name. Justice for the murdered and tortured,” exclaimed MP Guy Marius Sagna.