Senegal's presidential candidates are scheduled to make their final speeches to voters on Friday, ending what is being described as an unprecedented race in a hastily contested election after weeks of political crisis.
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Seven million people will be eligible to vote on Sunday in the traditionally stable and would-be oil-producing West African country, but more than a third live in poverty and half of the population is in the 20s. be under the age of
Seventeen candidates remain in the presidential race after two candidates withdrew at the last minute, with the campaign set to officially end at midnight Friday.
Whoever takes the top job will be tasked with guiding the country out of years of tension and managing revenues from recently discovered oil and gas reserves.
President Macky Sall, who has been in power since 2012, is not running again, making this the first Senegalese poll in which an incumbent does not appear on the ballot.
Two former tax inspectors, ruling coalition candidate and former prime minister Amadou Bah, 62, and anti-establishment opposition figure Basil Diomaie Faye, 43, are considered the frontrunners to win. There is.
Fay was just released from prison last week, nearly a week after campaigning began, along with popular and charismatic firefighter Ousmane Sonko, who is banned from running but supports Fay.
“We know that if there is no tsunami, these two will emerge,” El Hadj Mamadou Mbaye, a political science lecturer and researcher at Saint Louis University, said, referring to Ba and Fay. .
“The whole issue will come down to the third place (ranking candidate) who will be the referee,” he added.
Khalifa Sall, 68, the former mayor of Dakar, has been named as the third-place candidate in the first round.
Given the number of candidates and the need for an absolute majority, a second vote is likely, but no date has been set yet.
Mr. Fay is scheduled to hold his final rally at 4pm (16:00 local time) in the western town of Mbour, while Mr. Ba said he would hold it in Dakar and its suburbs.
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Senegal was originally scheduled to vote on February 25, but President Sall's 11th-hour postponement sparked the worst political crisis in decades and sparked riots that left four people dead.
read moreHow Senegal's presidential election was postponed, revived and brought forward
Under constitutional pressure, Sall ultimately set March 24, shortening the election period from three weeks to two weeks and coinciding with Ramadan, the Muslim fasting month.
International partners will closely monitor the vote in the country of 18 million people.
According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 39% of the country's population lives in poverty, with many setting off by boat on dangerous sea routes to reach Europe.
Senegal has traditionally maintained close ties with the West and been considered a beacon of stability in coup-hit West Africa, even as neighboring Sahel countries turned to Russia.
The country also plans to start producing oil and gas later this year following the discovery of offshore reserves.
In addition to this, Senegal has witnessed a deadly bout of insecurity since 2021, partially caused by the conflict between Sonko and the state.
Sonko's rhetoric, which emphasizes sovereignty and attacks elites, multinational corporations and former colonial power France, has a passionate following among young people.
“I’m hungry for change.”
Since his release under the amnesty law, Sonko has been featured prominently in the campaign alongside Fay, who has billed himself as a “candidate for system change” and a “left-wing Pan-Africanist.”
Mr Mbaye, a political science lecturer, said: “I think young people want change. Yes, we have candidates who have been around since the 1960s in our country, so we still need new blood.”
But Amadou Ba called on people to vote “for experience and ability, not for adventurers to rule the country.”
Mr Ba said he wanted to ensure stability and the continuation of the monkey's multi-year development plan.
But the president's legacy also includes persistent poverty, with unemployment officially at 20%, high debt and the arrest of hundreds of protesters.
Sidi Diop, deputy editor of the daily newspaper Le Soleil, said the desire for calm “will play a big role[in the election].”
“We are coming out of a very tense period. All candidates claim to be reconcilers for the Senegalese people,” he added.
Preliminary results could be known as early as Sunday night.
(AFP)
