SENEGAL POLITICS
Senegal’s top election authority on Thursday discontinued the government’s postponement of a presidential election scheduled for Feb. 25 and its rescheduling for December, ruling that the moves were unconstitutional and unnecessarily indecisive.
Senegal’s Constitutional Council voided the decision taken by President Macky Sall that postponed the election, according to a judgement signed by a seven members of the constitutional assembly, a copy of which was cumulated by The Associated Press.
The National Assembly’s decision on Feb. 5 to reschedule the vote for Dec. 15 also was “contrary to the constitution,” the judgement said. “The constitutional council, noting the impossibility of organizing the presidential election on the date primarily planned, invites the competent authorities to hold it as soon as possible,” it added.
The postponement has brought the country into political turmoil, and it was not immediately clear if the election could continue as scheduled, or whether more time would be exercised to allow for political campaigns.
Sall did not immediately make any public comments in reaction to the ruling. In an interview late last week with The Associated Press, he had declined to speak on whether there was need to accept the court’s decision if it rejected the delay, saying instead that “I will hold my ground ” when that judgment arrives.
The Senegalese leader had postponed the election hours before campaigns were to start, giving possibilities of disputes between the judiciary and the legislature over the final list of candidates as well as the reported dual nationality of some of the candidates.
The postponement was rejected by opposition leaders who led a protest against it, bringing about violent clashes with security forces, arrests and mobile internet cuts that continued to enagage political tensions in one of Africa’s most stable and valuable democracies.
This year’s election, unlike previous years, has been compromised by controversies from deadly protests that resulted in Sall announcing that he would not seek a third term, to the disqualification of two opposition leaders.
The opposition accused Sall of making a political rubbery to holding on toy power beyond the constitutionally allowed time .though the Senegalese leader has come out to trash such accusation, saying it’s one of the usual political tactics used by “I must win” politicians to deprive voters of their legitimate rights. He told The AP that he postponed the vote to prevent the country from undergoing any political wars “major difficulties” over the electoral dispute.
