Published on : 31/07/2022 – 11:28Modified : 31/07/2022 – 20:43
Senegalese people voted on Sunday to elect a new parliament. These legislative elections are a test for the opposition, which wishes to curb the ambitions of President Macky Sall.
Voting day at Senegal. Seven million voters were called to the polls on Sunday July 31 to renew the 165 seats in Parliament. A ballot at the end of which the opposition hopes to impose cohabitation on President Macky Sall, who wishes to keep a large majority.
These legislative elections are a test after the local elections in March, won by the opposition in large cities in this West African country renowned for its stability, such as Dakar, Ziguinchor (south) and Thiès (west).
Polling stations opened from 8 a.m. (GMT and local) and gradually began to close at 6 p.m., as in a polling center in Grand-Médine, a popular district of Dakar. The counting began immediately in this center which has 16 polling stations, noted AFP journalists.
Some seven million Senegalese were called for this ballot which took place without major incidents, whose participation was 22% at the national level at 1 p.m., according to the Ministry of the Interior.
The Autonomous National Electoral Commission (Cena), which supervises the vote, deployed some 22,000 observers throughout the territory. About forty experts from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are also present. The deputies are elected according to a method that mixes proportional voting with national lists for 53 parliamentarians, and majority voting in the departments for 97 others. The diaspora has 15 deputies.
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Imposing a coalition on the president
Eight coalitions are in the running for these elections, including those of the majority, and “Yewwi Askan Wi” (Free the People in the Wolof language), the main opposition coalition, formed around Ousmane Sonko, who came third in the presidential election. of 2019.
This is allied with the coalition “Wallu Senegal” (Save Senegal in Wolof), led by ex-president Abdoulaye Wade. The least well placed in one department undertakes to support the other to “impose governmental cohabitation”.
At 96, the former head of state from 2000 to 2012 made his way through a crowd of activists to go to the polls in Dakar in the early afternoon.
The election takes place in a context of rising prices, in particular because of the consequences of the war in Ukraine, the arguments used by the opposition against the government, which highlights the subsidies for petroleum products and foodstuffs as well as its program of infrastructure construction.
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The opposition also wants to force Macky Sall – who voted in the morning in Fatick, 150 km southeast of Dakar – to give up any hint of candidacy in 2024. Elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, the president remains vague about his intentions 19 months before the presidential election.
The pre-campaign had been marked by violent demonstrations which had caused at least three deaths due to the invalidation by the Constitutional Council of the holders of the national list of the coalition led by Mr. Sonko.
Several opposition figures, including Ousmane Sonko, were forced to give up participating in the elections, not without having called on their supporters to protest against what they considered to be a ploy by President Macky Sall to dismiss his opponents under the guise of legal means.
Apart from the first demonstration, all the others had been banned by the authorities. On June 29, the opposition finally calmed things down by agreeing to take part in the ballot, which it had hitherto threatened to prevent.
With AFP