Senegal was holding legislative elections yesterday, a vital test for opposition parties which are trying to minimize the ruling party’s influence before the 2024 presidential election amid worries that Senegalese President Macky Sall might seek a third term.
About 7 million voters were eligible to elect 165 deputies in the National Assembly amid a politically tense atmosphere in the West African nation. Violent protests broke out last year after Sall’s main opponent, Ousmane Sonko, was arrested on rape charges and more than a dozen people were killed. Sonko, who came in third in the 2019 election, denies the allegations and his supporters have been vocal about their opposition to the president.
This year, he and another of Sall’s major opponents were disqualified as candidates, which sparked more widespread anger and protests in which three people died in June.
Photo: AP
Senegal, with a population of 17 million, is known for its stability in a region that has seen coups in three countries since 2020 and where leaders have changed laws to remain in power for third terms.
Yesterday’s election would give a clearer indication of what could happen in 2024.
“For [the ruling party], it is a question of doing everything to maintain an absolute majority in the National Assembly in order to be able to govern quietly until 2024 ... and guarding the possibility of passing certain laws to prepare for all eventualities at the end of Sall’s second term,” political analyst Mame Ngor Ngom said.
Even though Sonko’s candidacy was rejected by the Constitutional Council, he has organized opposition supporters across Senegal.
A victory for the opposition “would be synonymous with the rejection of a possible third candidacy for Sall and a probable victory in the next presidential election,” Ngom said.
Sall’s Benno Bokk Yakaar ruling party holds 75 percent of the legislature’s seats.
Serigne Thiam, a political science expert at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, said the opposition is pushing the subject of a possible third term over other issues.
“If the opposition wins, the president will no longer be able to think of a third term. On the other hand, if the ruling power wins the ballot, its supporters can push the president toward a third term,” he said.
Sall has not talked about a third term, but has promised to speak today.
Dissatisfaction with Sall has risen as possible adversaries — including the popular former mayor of Dakar, Khalifa Sall, and ex-president Abdoulaye Wade’s son Karim Wade — have been targeted by the judiciary and disqualified from running for office. Many accuse Sall of using his power to eliminate opponents.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS