He has not yet set a date for holding the election.
But the head of the Senegalese State Macky Sall, who is not seeking a third term, announced on Saturday that he had repealed his decree setting the presidential election on February 25, after the establishment of a parliamentary commission investigating two judges of the Constitutional Council whose integrity in the electoral process is contested.
The constitutional court had excluded dozens of contenders from the ballot, including two leading opposition figures, the anti-system candidate Ousmane Sonko and Karim Wade, minister and son of ex-president Abdoulaye Wade.
“I signed the decree of February 3, 2024 repealing the decree” of November 26, 2023 setting the presidential election for February 25, 2024, said the Senegalese Head of State in his speech to the Nation, a few hours before the opening of the electoral campaign for the presidential vote for which twenty candidates were to compete.
“I will initiate an open national dialogue, in order to create the conditions for a free, transparent and inclusive election,” said Macky Sall.
A first in Senegal
This is the first time since 1963 that a presidential election by direct universal suffrage has been postponed in Senegal.
President Sall had set the presidential election for February 25 in a decree dated November 29, 2023. He had promised at the end of December to hand over power to the elected president at the end of the election at the end of April and reiterated this several times.
Elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, he announced in July 2023 that he was not a candidate for a new term.
He appointed Prime Minister Amadou Bâ, an official of the presidential party, as his successor in September.
Does the government fear losing the presidential election?
The National Assembly approved on Wednesday, after tumultuous debates, the formation of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the process.
A large number of members of the presidential camp voted for.
This support has caused trouble.
Opponents of the outgoing president suspect a plan to postpone the presidential election because those in power fear losing it.
The Minister of Community Development, Thérèse Faye, also a leader of the presidential camp, spoke on Friday in favor of postponing the presidential election for at least six months.
Close to Macky Sall, she considered that the electoral process which resulted in January in the validation of 20 candidates by the Constitutional Council had been “messed up” by irregularities, on the private television TFM.
Thérèse Faye is tough on the postponement: “Yes, at least for 6 months” #SunuElection2024 pic.twitter.com/DrvLTUdqUe
— Fana Cissé (@fannyjc4) February 2, 2024
The former ruling party, whose candidate is Karim Wade, announced that it had submitted to the National Assembly on Friday “a bill relating to the postponement” of the presidential election on February 25.
“Our parliamentary initiative is motivated by the numerous incidents and protests which distorted the electoral process, highlighting serious dysfunctions” and “even more so with the elimination of candidates”, said in this press release, the Senegalese Democratic Party ( PDS) who leads a parliamentary group made up of 27 deputies, out of 165 in the National Assembly.
Karim Wade renounced his French nationality
Furthermore, one of the 20 candidates validated by the Council, Rose Wardini, was placed in custody on Friday evening by the Criminal Investigation Division (Dic, judicial police) for “forgery and use of forgery and fraud in the judgment”, a AFP learned from a police source.
She was arrested as part of an investigation into her presumed Franco-Senegalese nationality, according to this source.
Any candidate for the presidency “must be exclusively of Senegalese nationality”, says the Constitution.
Candidate Karim Wade was excluded from the February 25 vote because of his dual Senegalese and French nationality, according to the Constitutional Council.
He has since renounced his French nationality.
The decree of the French Minister of the Interior confirming my renunciation of French nationality is further proof of my constancy.
This sterile and dangerous controversy fueled by Thierno Alassane Sall to gain visibility and acting on behalf of the very… pic.twitter.com/DLahPvXCNt
— Karim Wade (@KarimWade_PR) January 17, 2024
He denounced “a scandalous decision” and “a new legal plot”, before his party initiated in the National Assembly the process which led to the establishment of the parliamentary commission of inquiry.