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.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
RSS