Fifteen of the 20 candidates selected in January for the Senegalese presidential election are demanding that the election take place no later than April 2, with the date of the vote completely unclear.
The Senegalese, who were to vote next Sunday, do not know when they will go to the polls after an unprecedented sequence since independence, during which outgoing President Macky Sall decreed the postponement of the election and the Constitutional Council invalidated his decision .
This sequence triggered a new and heated dispute over the holding of the presidential election before or after April 2, the official expiration of President Sall's mandate.
The dispute also concerns a restart from scratch, or not, of the process which saw the Constitutional Council approve 20 candidacies in January.
The names of 15 of the 20 competitors then selected appear at the bottom of a press release consulted Monday by AFP and saying that
"the new date of the vote as well as that of the handover of service between the president and his successor must be held at later on April 2
.
Two of the signatories authenticated the document with the AFP.
Signing of main competitors
The candidates assure that the list of 20 applications approved in January is intangible.
President Macky Sall said on Friday his intention to respect the decision of the Constitutional Council and to carry out
“without delay the necessary consultations for the organization of the presidential election as soon as possible”
.
The candidates note
“with bitterness that since the decision of the Constitutional Council no action has been taken by the authorities to execute it”
.
The text bears the names of some of the main competitors, including the former mayor of Dakar Khalifa Sall and the anti-system Bassirou Diomaye Faye.
It does not include that of Prime Minister Amadou Ba, candidate of the presidential camp, nor of the former heads of government Idrissa Seck and Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne.