End of the electoral campaign, Senegal ready for the presidential vote

Hibapress

After the end, Friday at midnight, of the electoral campaign which began on March 9, Senegalese voters are called, on Sunday, to go to the polls to nominate the one who will succeed the outgoing head of state, Macky Sall, for the next five years.

During an electoral campaign reduced to two weeks, and which took place, according to several observers, in peaceful and normal conditions, the candidates traveled to all regions of the country, carrying out tours and meetings to convince voters during this election initially scheduled for February 24, before its postponement by the president, Macky Sall.

In the opinion of several experts, the candidate of the ruling coalition Amadou Ba, as well as Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Khalifa Ababacar Sall and Idrissa Seck, are the four main competitors in this electoral event.

Initially, twenty applications were validated by the Constitutional Council. However, three candidates have decided to withdraw from the presidential race. These are Rose Wardini after the discovery of her French nationality, Cheikh Tidiane Dièye and Habib Sy who announced their withdrawal in the last hours of the electoral campaign.

Thus, more than seven million Senegalese citizens will be present for this major democratic exercise which will lead to the election of the fifth president of Senegal after Léopold Sédar Senghor (1960-1980), Abdou Diouf (1980-2000), Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012) and Macky Sall since 2012.

According to the country's authorities, Senegal is ready to hold this 13th presidential election in its history since independence in 1960 in peaceful and transparent conditions.

In this regard, the Minister of the Interior, Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé, reassured that all measures have been taken “to lead us to a peaceful, transparent election, where the result will be sincere and will not be contested”.

The government official indicated Friday that at least 50,000 agents of the defense and security forces will be deployed on Sunday to ensure the smooth running of the Senegalese presidential election.

“They will secure the Senegalese, the vote, after the vote, they will escort the equipment, the ballot boxes, for delivery to Dakar,” the Senegalese minister told the press.

“The equipment is in place, the ballots, the stamps, the payroll lists. The (polling) stations are also in place,” said Mouhamadou Makhtar Cissé.

Furthermore, some 2,457 observers, including 899 international observers, were accredited for the Senegalese presidential election, according to the General Directorate of Elections.

On the other hand, the president of the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA) assured that Sunday's vote will be transparent. In this context, he called on citizens to prove that “if Senegalese democracy may experience difficulties, it is capable of delivering, in the end, a good copy”.

“This election will be transparent, because CENA controllers and representatives of the candidates will be present in all the polling stations. The results, as usual, will be sincere. In the end there will be only one winner: the Senegalese people,” declared Abdoulaye Sylla in “a message to Senegalese citizens”.

According to data from the electoral map, some 7,371,890 voters registered in the electoral register, distributed in 15,633 polling stations in Senegal and 807 abroad, will vote on Sunday.

This figure represents an increase of more than 300,000 voters compared to the 2019 presidential election, won by Macky Sall, the outgoing head of state who is not going to run for a 3rd term and who is leaving power on Next April 2.

The provisional results of the first round of the presidential election will be announced no later than April 1, 2024 by the National Votes Census Commission, one day before the end of Macky Sall's mandate.

Remember that the President of the Republic of Senegal is elected for a five-year term by single-member majority vote in two rounds. Following the 2016 constitutional referendum, the term of office was reduced from seven to five years. This duration had already been in force before 1993 and for the 2007 election.

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