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00:00 The nail on the head, it has been a chaotic few weeks.
00:03 In fact, Senegal has entered completely unprecedented
00:07 political territory, what some might go as far as to describe
00:11 as a crisis.
00:12 After Macky Sall, the president, delayed the first round
00:15 of the presidential election, which was initially scheduled
00:18 to take place last month.
00:20 Now, he justified that decision by pointing
00:23 to corruption allegations leveled at the country's
00:26 constitutional council, something that very few people
00:30 bought into as an idea or as a justification,
00:33 and which resulted in kind of pretty enormous public
00:37 frustration.
00:38 So now that an election date has finally been fixed,
00:42 now that the president's hand has
00:44 been forced by the very same constitutional council that
00:47 was accused of corruption allegations,
00:49 there is, truth be told, a real sense of relief
00:51 among ordinary Senegalese voters.
00:55 And Sam, this is expected to be one
00:56 of the most tightly contested races in Senegal's history.
00:59 It certainly is a crowded field.
01:01 Tell us about some of the main candidates.
01:03 Well, it's actually never been such a crowded field.
01:09 19 candidates, all competing for the top job,
01:13 all competing for the presidency.
01:15 There are two, I would say, clear front runners.
01:18 There's Amadou Barre, the former prime minister,
01:21 who was in his role as prime minister
01:23 until actually just this week.
01:26 He is kind of seen as a continuity candidate.
01:29 He's the chosen figure by President Macissal
01:33 to replace him to assume high office,
01:35 very much seen as an ally of Macissal.
01:39 Potentially one of his weaknesses
01:40 is that he doesn't have unanimous support
01:43 from within the ruling party.
01:45 Then another key candidate going into this election
01:48 is a man called Basirou Dioumaifai.
01:50 He's a sort of firebrand opposition figure.
01:53 His potential weakness going into the polls
01:55 is that he's currently in detention.
01:58 He has been validated to run by the country's
02:00 constitutional council, but it's unclear
02:02 whether he will be released from detention
02:04 before the day of the vote itself.
02:07 So we're certainly heading into what promises
02:10 to be a very tightly contested race.
02:12 If there's no clear majority winner after the first round,
02:15 there will be a runoff with the two most popular candidates
02:18 going head to head.