Credible vote key to restoring Senegal’s reputation

After a tumultuous build-up, Senegal will elect a new president on Sunday.

A credible vote will be key to restoring the country’s reputation as a bastion of democracy in west Africa, a region riven by a spate of coups over the past four years. The country has never had a military takeover, and president Macky Sall’s decision to delay the elections triggered street protests, international condemnation and fears that he intended to overstay his constitutional mandate.

Nineteen contenders are vying to replace Mr Sall but there are only two serious ones: Amadou Ba, the former prime minister who is backed by the incumbent and is the ruling coalition’s candidate; and Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who became the main opposition’s flag bearer after its firebrand leader Ousmane Sonko was disqualified from standing following his conviction on libel charges.

Ba (62), previously served as the nation’s top diplomat and as finance minister. He’s expected to stick to the policy framework instituted by the Sall administration that enabled the economy to grow by an average of more than 5 per cent a year over the past decade.

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A 43-year-old former tax inspector with no experience in government, Mr Faye has pledged to review oil and gas deals that the government signed with international investors including BP Plc, Endeavour Mining and Kosmos Energy. He also intends rethinking whether Senegal should continue using the CFA franc – a euro-pegged regional currency – if the way it is managed isn’t overhauled, and to review the nation’s relations with former colonial power France.

To win the presidency, a candidate needs to win an outright majority, failing which the two contenders who garner the most votes will square off in a second round next month. More than seven million people have registered to vote.

The initial focus will be on whether the election runs smoothly and is acceptable to voters, rather than on what unfolds next, said Mucahid Durmaz, senior Africa analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.

“The vote will certainly go to a second round. Only then the political positioning, building alliances to boost support, will start,” said Mr Durmaz, who expects Mr Sonko’s popularity among the country’s large urban youth to bolster the opposition campaign. “People will vote for Faye because he has Sonko’s backing.”

The elections were originally scheduled to take place on February 25th, but Mr Sall delayed them, citing concerns over the candidate-vetting process. While lawmakers sought to amend the constitution to extend his rule by at least 10 months, the nation’s top court ruled it would be illegal for him to retain office after his second term ends on April 2nd.

In an attempt to ease tensions, Mr Sall passed a controversial amnesty law for people who had been convicted of offences linked to political protests since February 2021. Mr Faye and Mr Sonko, who had both been jailed, were deemed eligible for release under its provisions.

Mr Sall’s successor “needs to restore the confidence between the presidency and the people” that was broken by the postponement of the vote, said Babacar Ndiaye, a political analyst with Dakar-based think tank Wathi.

The new president will also need to ensure the benefits of the expanding economy and an anticipated oil and gas boom are more evenly spread. About a third of the country’s 18 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank, and tens of thousands of young Senegalese who see little in the way of job prospects have emigrated – many of them entering Europe or the US. – Bloomberg