Senegal President Macky Sall wins re-election
Senegalese President Macky Sall has won re-election with 58.27 percent of votes cast in last Sunday’s poll, according to Judge Demba Kandji, president of Senegal’s National Census of Votes Commission.
The solid majority hands Sall a second term without the need for a second round of voting.
According to the provisional results,leading opposition candidate Idrissa Seck took 20.50 percent of the vote while Ousmane Sonko had 15.67 percent. They are yet to accept the result.
There is speculation that they could legally challenge Sall’s win. Earlier in the week they had disputed unofficial results which gave Sall a comfortable victory.
Ahead of the vote, observers had indicated Sall’s chances of winning a second round runoff were slim. Therefore the aim was to gain victory in the first round, which he did. Should Sall have faced a second-round challenge, all the remaining candidates would have been likely to back his opponent.
Excluded contenders
The election was also marred by allegations in January that the presidency had effectively blocked two prominent opposition politicians from taking part: Dakar’s former mayor, Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, the son of longtime President Abdoulaye Wade, who Sall ousted from office in 2012. Both Khalifa Sall and Wade were jailed for graft and corruption and barred from running by the Constitutional Council.
Economic concerns
Senegal is a major exporter of fish and peanuts, and gained independence from France in 1960.
There has been some criticism of Sall’s economic record which has seen a number of expensive infrastructure projects carried out by foreign companies, such as the Sendou coal power plant project in Bargny which allegedly deprived local people of their land, and the 45-kilometre Dakar-Diamniadio Highway. This cut the journey between the city and its suburb from 90 to 30 minutes, but also badly affected small businesses which had operated and traded alongside the old road. The airport served by the Dakar-Diamnadio Road opened in 2017.
In the previous election Sall had promised to create half a million jobs during his seven-year term and claimed he did create 491,000 between 2012 and 2018 although there is no statistical evidence for his claims.
ap,jm/amp (AP, Reuters)
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/senegal-president-macky-sall-wins-re-election/a-47728214?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf