APA – Dakar (Senegal) – The electoral calendar for the 2024 presidential election in Senegal is now available.
Campaign for the presidential election of 24 March kicked off on Saturday. It began in an unusual atmosphere, with the electoral process suspended for more than a month and the campaign period for the nineteen candidates reduced to around two weeks.
Despite these difficulties, the electoral machinery seems to have been set in motion, as the timetable for the electoral process has been communicated to stakeholders.
The provisional results of the first round of the presidential election will be announced by the National Electoral Validation Commission (CNRV), chaired by the President of the Court of Appeal, not later than 1st April 2024.
The constitutional court, the main referee of the election, will rule within five clear days of the lodging of an appeal against the results, before proclaiming the final outcome of the elections.
The decision to set the presidential election for 24 March 2024 was taken last Wednesday by President Macky Sall, who is not seeking re-election after twelve years as head of state. Opposition candidates won their case after petitioning the constitutional court to hold the election before the incumbent’s term ends on 2 April.
Although the country’s streets will come alive this Sunday with the caravans carrying the candidates, many of them appear to have been taken by surprise by the start of the campaign.
Some of them were already campaigning for the election to be held on 31 March, the date originally set by the Supreme Court of Appeal, but then decided to go along with the day chosen by the head of state.
Although they will not have the 21 days of campaigning provided for in Senegal’s electoral code, the nineteen candidates or their representatives took turns on Friday and Saturday to appear on national television to record their airtime and present their programmes to viewers.
The ruling coalition, led by former Prime Minister Amadou Ba, promises to continue President Sall’s work if it succeeds in electing its “continuity candidate”.
But the task will not be easy for the Benno Bokk Yakaar (United in Hope) coalition, which faces an impressive number of candidates who want to offer the people of Senegal new alternatives to government.
Among them is Anta Babacar Ngom, an agribusiness manager and leader of the Alternative for the Citizen’s Liberation (ARC) movement. She is the only female candidate left in the race after the withdrawal of Rose Wardini, whose momentum was disrupted by the discovery of her French citizenship.
The campaign is also starting in a special atmosphere because Bassirou Diomaye Faye, one of the main candidates supported by the famous jailed opponent Ousmane Sonko, is still in prison. His release, along with that of all so-called “political prisoners,” is expected soon, following the vote on a bill granting amnesty for criminal and penal offences committed between 2021 and 2024 in connection with political demonstrations.
In recent days, the coalition led by candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye has attracted a number of new supporters, including Dr. Abdourahmane Diouf, a candidate who was rejected at the sponsorship stage. At a press conference on Saturday, he officially declared his support for the “sovereignist project” embodied by the Pastef party, founded in 2014 by Ousmane Sonko.
For its part, the state, through Prime Minister Sidiki Kaba, who formed his government on Friday after the dissolution of Amadou Ba’s team on Wednesday, intends to take up the challenge of organising elections in such a short space of time.
CA/lb/as/APA