Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Senegal's parliament has voted to postpone a presidential election from February 25th
00:06 to December 15th, extending President Macky Sall's mandate.
00:11 That's triggered widespread public outcry and potentially tarnishes Senegal's image
00:15 as one of West Africa's more stable democracies.
00:21 Why therefore did Sall announce a delay?
00:25 He said it was because of a dispute over the election's candidate list and alleged corruption
00:30 within the constitutional body that compiled it.
00:34 In a surprise speech to the nation hours before official campaigning was due to begin, he
00:38 said these "troubled conditions" could seriously undermine the credibility of the ballot by
00:44 sowing the seeds of pre- and post-electoral disputes.
00:50 But Senegal's recent history has already seen disputes.
00:54 At times carried out violently in the streets.
00:58 They've been triggered by concerns that Sall, who has reached the constitutional limit of
01:02 two terms in office, would run again.
01:05 Demonstrations have also taken place over the alleged political sidelining of opposition
01:10 leader Ousmane Sanko.
01:12 Sall has said, both before and after the announcement of a postponement, that he is not running
01:18 for a third term.
01:20 However, some opposition and civil society groups accuse Sall of orchestrating an institutional
01:26 coup to extend his tenure.
01:29 A number of presidential candidates have submitted legal challenges, raising the prospect of
01:35 a protracted court battle.
01:37 And there have been protests in the streets, prompting police to fire tear gas and make
01:42 arrests.
01:43 However, there is some opposition support.
01:47 Indeed, it was the Senegalese Democratic Party, whose candidate was excluded from the final
01:53 candidate list over dual nationality issues, that proposed the postponement bill in Parliament
01:58 before Sall's address.
02:02 But the president's announcement still took people by surprise.
02:06 That includes Senegalese citizens like Pape Sene.
02:08 If Macky Sall had said from the beginning that it might be possible to consider postponing
02:15 the elections, people could have anticipated it.
02:19 But to decide like this overnight, it can only lead to confusion.
02:28 But it's also potentially caught the international community off guard.
02:33 Senegal has never delayed a presidential vote, and held four largely peaceful transfers of
02:38 power since independence from France in 1960.
02:43 The abrupt postponement has dismayed those who believed the West African country would
02:47 stick to a standard electoral course.
02:50 That's in a region that's become a proxy battleground between Western powers and Russia, following
02:55 several military coups in recent years.
02:59 The African Union, the United States and regional bloc ECOWAS have all raised concerns.
03:05 An analysis by Barclays warned that a postponement could "open the door for subsequent postponements
03:11 and allow the president to do many things."
03:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]