Senegalese presidential candidates launched their shortened campaigns on Saturday, two days after a court docket confirmed the election could be held on March 24, ending weeks of uncertainty and kick-starting a contest that continues to be vast open.
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Tensions have gripped the nation since early February, when a bid by President Macky Sall to postpone by 10 months a vote that had been because of happen on Feb. 25 provoked widespread protests and warnings by critics of democratic backsliding.
Senegal, a rustic of 18 million, is often one in every of West Africa‘s most steady democracies.
The worst of the disaster seems to be over after the Constitutional Council ruled that the vote have to be held earlier than Sall’s mandate expires on April 2.
FRANCE 24’s Sam Bradpiece stories from Dakar
The brand new date leaves the 19 candidates little greater than two weeks, fairly than the standard 21 days, to drum up help. It additionally implies that for the primary time campaigning within the majority Muslim nation will happen throughout the holy month of Ramadan, which begins on Sunday night time.
“We should adapt every little thing,” opposition candidate and former mayor of the capital Dakar, Khalifa Sall, instructed Reuters.
“We had been used to huge gatherings, huge occasions — it was festive — however this festive character doesn’t match with Ramadan, which is a time of penitence, a second of communion.”
The marketing campaign interval additionally coincides with the Christian interval of Lent.
Sall, 62, who has reached the constitutional restrict of two phrases in energy, mentioned when he delayed the ballot that he was doing so due to a dispute over candidates and alleged corruption inside the Constitutional Council that accredited the checklist. The council has denied the accusations.
“We should exhibit flexibility and ingenuity,” mentioned Khalifa Sall, who shouldn’t be associated to the president.
“However the essential factor is now we have a date and we are going to vote.”
The charismatic former mayor, who was prevented by a jail sentence from contesting the 2019 presidential election and later pardoned, launched his marketing campaign because the clock struck midnight on Friday.
He pledged to re-unite the divided nation and reform state establishments to keep away from future constitutional crises, calling the latest dispute over the election date a “grave and unhappy factor” for a rustic has held elections for 64 years.
He additionally promised to revive the economic system by boosting agriculture, fishing and the budding oil and gasoline business.
The ruling Benno Bokk Yakaar (BBY) coalition’s candidate, Amadou Ba, was because of kick off his marketing campaign in a while Saturday, as was opposition candidate Anta Babacar.
(Reuters)