PH
Fifteen of the 20 candidates who were allowed to participate in Senegal’s postponed February presidential election have requested that a new poll be held no later than April 2.
President Macky Sall, whose term expires on that day, announced a postponement of the February 25 election just hours before official campaigning began.
The move triggered Senegal’s most significant political upheaval in decades.
Last Monday, the Supreme Court overruled the decision.
However, it has left open the question of whether the election would take place before Sall leaves office, as well as whether the same candidates will appear on the ballot.
Fifteen of the original contenders signed a statement, seen by AFP on Monday, requesting that “the new polling date and the date for the handover between the president and his successor must be held no later than April 2”.
They claimed that the list of 20 names authorized in January will stay unaltered.
Two of the signatories confirmed the letter’s authenticity to AFP.
Sall has declared that he will “carry out the consultations necessary to organise the presidential election as soon as possible” and will follow the Constitutional Council’s ruling.
The letter’s signatories expressed “bitterness that, since the decision of the Constitutional Council, no action has been taken by the authorities to implement it”.
The petition was signed by several of the prominent contenders, including incarcerated anti-establishment rival Bassirou Diomaye Faye and former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, who is unrelated to the president.
It was not signed by Prime Minister Amadou Ba, the presidential campaign’s official candidate.
