The presidential camp in Senegal came in slightly ahead after the legislative elections of July 31, according to the final results, but will keep an absolute majority in the National Assembly thanks to a new alliance.
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A Senegalese voter casts his ballot in Dakar, July 31, 2022, during the July 2022 legislative elections in Senegal
The presidential camp in Senegal came in slightly ahead after the legislative elections of July 31, according to the final results, but will keep an absolute majority in the National Assembly thanks to a new alliance.
The President’s Coalition Macky Sall has 82 deputies, down from its 125 deputies elected in 2017, out of the 165 in the Assembly, indicated Thursday evening the Constitutional Councilwhich confirmed the provisional figures announced on August 4 by the National Vote Census Commission (CNRV).
But she gets a absolute majority of 83 deputies, against 82 in total for the opposition, with the support of an opposition deputy, Pape Diopformer President of the National Assembly and the Senate.
Pape Diop announced Thursday that he has “made the decision to (join)” to the presidential camp to avoid Senegal “a blockage in the functioning of institutions”during a press conference in Dakar.
“Given the presidentialist nature of our political system, a National Assembly placed under the control of the opposition will inevitably lead to an institutional crisis” bearer of “all dangers”he explained.
The National Assembly would then be transformed “not as a counter-power but rather as a bottleneck to the action of the President of the Republic and his government”said Pape Diop.
The opposition alliance won 80 seats, including 56 for the coalition “Yewwi Askan With” led by the main opponent Ousmane Sonko and 24 for that of “Wallu Senegal”led by former President Abdoulaye Wade – The Best Of Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012), according to the Constitutional Council.
The other two opposition MPs come from the ranks of two other small party coalitions.
The opposition alliance had announced that it would not appeal to the Constitutional Council, for lack of confidence, according to it, in this jurisdiction that opponents present as being under the thumb of power, which has always rejected this allegation. .
Yewwi Askan Wi had also complained on August 4 of the “refusal” of the CNRV to let her “check” the minutes of votes in four localities in the north of the country, in a stronghold of President Sall.
The opposition had announced that it was aiming for a legislative victory to impose a cohabitation to President Sall and push him to give up the project that has been attributed to him to run for president in 2024.
President Sall, elected in 2012 for seven years and re-elected in 2019 for five years, maintains the blurry about his intentions. He promised that he would appoint a Prime Minister – a post he had abolished in 2019 and then restored in December 2021 – from the party that won the elections.