Two leaders of the Senegalese citizens' collective Aar Sunu Election maintained on Friday that the presidential election should take place before April 2, rejecting the position the day before of the head of state suspending the date for a political dialogue.
Elimane Haby Kane and Malick Diop reaffirmed to AFP that the presidential election should be held according to the constitutional calendar, with the 19 candidates validated by the Constitutional Council.
They indicated that the collective still planned to demonstrate on Saturday.
Dialogue
“We were waiting for him (the president)”
on this date,
“everything else is delaying
,” declared Kane.
The dialogue planned by President Macky Sall on Monday and Tuesday with political and social forces to agree on a date
“does not make sense
,” he added.
“Our position is (before) April 2, otherwise it’s a crisis
,” Diop said.
“A dialogue to do what?”
, he asked.
He recalled that according to Aar Sunu Election projections, the vote initially scheduled for February 25 and postponed by President Sall, at the cost of one of the most serious crises experienced by the country in decades, was to take place on February 3 or March 10.
He acknowledged that the date of the 3rd was becoming more and more
“hypothetical”
as time passed.
The two officials said that their position was that of their collective of several dozen civil society organizations, whose leaders consulted, according to them, after President Sall's speech Thursday evening.
Another collective, of 16 presidential candidates, told AFP that it would speak around 11:00 a.m. (local and GMT).
Its coordinator Cheikh Youm did not comment on the reaction of the candidates to the president's intervention.
President Sall left the date of the presidential election which he had decreed to be postponed on hold on Thursday, while ensuring that he would leave his post as planned on April 2, whether his successor is known or not.