Dakar, Senegal – After tense days of ready for a winner in Sunday’s legislative elections, provisional outcomes launched confirmed that President Macky Sall’s ruling coalition misplaced its majority in a ballot organized by opposition teams as a referendum on his insurance policies and aspirations. potential for the third time period.
Nonetheless, the principle opposition coalitions additionally did not win a majority of the Nationwide Meeting’s 165 seats. Sall’s coalition United in Hope (Benno Bokk Yakaar, within the Wolof language) received 82 of the 165 meeting seats, one wanting a majority.
The principle opposition coalitions, Liberate the Individuals (Yewwi Askan Wi) and Save Senegal (Wallu Senegal), operating in an alliance, received 56 and 24 seats respectively, for a complete of 80. The remaining three seats have been break up between events smaller and coalitions.
Thursday’s outcomes carry one other twist to an already suspense-filled week behind it high-stakes Sunday polls. How the assorted teams will govern and the way a lot affect the principle opposition or Sall’s camp may have stays to be seen, as they must decide the remaining three legislators.
Senegal has by no means earlier than had a Nationwide Meeting with out an absolute majority, and a Senegalese president has by no means ruled with out his occasion having a majority.
“There can be a balancing of political forces,” mentioned Maurice Soudieck Dione, a political science professor at Senegal’s Gaston Berger College.
“President Sall now not has his comfy majority, his mechanical majority that allowed him to do no matter he needed.
“There can be an impact of checks and balances,” Dione mentioned, including that the opposition’s “presidentialization” of the legislative marketing campaign — that’s, making the election a referendum on Sall — was a profitable technique.
A backdrop of democratic backsliding in Senegal had, for a lot of, raised the stakes of Sunday’s vote. After constitutional modifications throughout Sall’s first time period, many mentioned he was prone to argue that such modifications successfully reset his time in workplace, permitting him to hunt one other time period in 2024 regardless of being term-limited. in two mandates.
The opposition hoped that a majority within the Nationwide Meeting would complicate such a transfer. For years, Sall has repeatedly refused to remark publicly on whether or not he would search a 3rd time period, placing a lot at stake.
Rigidity between Sall’s camp and the opposition rose shortly after the tip of Sunday’s vote, when Sall’s coalition declared victory within the early hours of Monday morning.
Opposition coalitions dismissed the transfer as untimely – and later claimed victory for his or her facet.
Outcomes have been first anticipated on Monday, however amid slender margins, voters have been left ready as the executive division’s vote depend got here in individually, with a sluggish decline.
As extra votes slipped in all through the week, it started to appear to be the opposition had the higher hand. Forward of Thursday’s outcomes, consideration had turned to the north Saint Louis area.
Liberate the Individuals known as for the nationwide vote-counting fee to droop the announcement of outcomes to present the opposition an opportunity to research allegations of fraud and irregularities at some polling stations within the north, however the request was rejected.
Allegations within the press and suspicious movies on Twitter have circulated in current days, however analysts mentioned that whereas the state of affairs is difficult, no proof of fraud has emerged.
The Civil Society Organizations’ Collective for Elections, a neighborhood election statement group supported by worldwide observers, mentioned truthful elections have been held with minimal disruption.
Protests earlier than the elections
Protests erupted in Dakar and throughout the nation within the run-up to the vote when the record of Individuals’s Liberation candidates was rejected by the constitutional council on a technique – Leaving high-profile candidates like Ousmane Sonko, a 2019 presidential contender, off the poll.
On condition that Sall’s earlier political rivals have additionally been present in jail or dealing with prices towards them, the constitutional council’s choice was interpreted by some as political interference.
In Sunday’s election, Liberate the Individuals needed to run its personal alternative record, made up largely of political outsiders. Sall’s coalition, which needed to drop its alternative record in one other technicality requested by the constitutional council, defended the method.
“In the event you make an inventory that doesn’t respect what the regulation says, it’s merely eradicated,” Sall advised French broadcaster Radio France Worldwide. “It’s troublesome, however that is the regulation.”
Protesters additionally took to the streets in Dakar and cities throughout the nation final yr when Sonko was arrested on rape prices – prices he has denied. However the pressure seen between Senegal’s rival politicians was largely absent amongst voters on Sunday, in polls that observers mentioned have been largely uneventful.
Though the capital, Dakar, went to the opposition, there have been many citizens pleased to vote for Sall’s coalition. Below Sall, Senegal’s financial system grew by greater than 6 p.c yearly from 2014 to 2018.
Even within the midst of an financial downturn in 2018 – adopted by the COVID-19 pandemic – the nation’s GDP continued to take care of constructive, if stumbling, development.
A lot-needed infrastructure tasks, from highways to renovated regional airports to new bridges, are being constructed throughout the nation. Offshore oil and gasoline manufacturing has simply begun, and a brand new practice line runs from Dakar by its suburbs to newly constructed stadiums and convention facilities on the outskirts of the capital.
“There are loads of issues that must be completed, and they’re behind them,” mentioned Daouda Banji, a United in Hope voter sitting within the courtyard of a highschool that doubled as a polling station Sunday within the crowded suburb. of Thiaroye. “They’re working for our nation.”
On the similar time, the rising tide of the financial system has not lifted all boats equally. Whereas the nation has recovered from the worst of the pandemic, inflation all over the world – a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraineprovide chain issues attributable to COVID and Wall Avenue hypothesis – have pushed up costs for objects corresponding to wheat and cooking oil.
Hire, price of residing points and unemployment are previous points amongst involved residents. Different entrenched points stay unresolved: This spring, battle flared once more between the Senegalese military and separatist rebels within the Casamance area, the place after 40 years peace stays elusive.
In July, as seasonal rains flooded Dakar, a number of neighborhoods discovered themselves beneath water, regardless of repeated guarantees to enhance the infrastructure of town and surrounding suburbs.
“All the pieces that occurs within the Nationwide Meeting, it is Macky Sall who decides … I am voting first for the individuals to have illustration within the Nationwide Meeting,” mentioned Oumar Fall, a Senegalese-American who voted overseas from Detroit, Michigan . , the place he’s a postal employee.
“There may be the opportunity of a 3rd time period [for Sall]which might plunge the nation into chaos.”
The Nationwide Meeting of Senegal has 97 legislators elected by majority of their division and 53 elected by proportional illustration. One other 15 legislators are elected by Senegalese residing overseas.
Whereas the nation is famous for its political stability, this has not at all times equated to a wholesome democracy: Sall got here to energy after defeating then-President. Abdoulaye Wade throughout a 3rd time period led by the present president, who used the constitutional modifications as an excuse to revive his time in workplace.
Senegalese took to the streets and the poll field to reject Wade, and most of the similar protesters from that 2012 election have demonstrated out of concern that Sall will attempt the identical.
Whereas the opposition did not win a majority, some analysts and observers pointed to the truth that Sall’s occasion misplaced its majority as dangerous for any presidential bid for a 3rd time period.
On Sunday, some supporters famous that their votes for United in Hope weren’t essentially votes for a 3rd time period for Sall.
“That is the presidential election – it isn’t time for that but,” mentioned Badji, a United Hope voter in Thiaroye.
Bitou Sané, a highschool scholar who voted for Sall’s occasion, added: “We are able to wait, we are able to see.”
