Cheers in Dakar

Senegal: Challenger wins spectacular election victory

In Senegal, opposition candidate Bassirou Diomaye Faye has been elected president with a surprisingly clear majority. Government candidate and former Prime Minister Amadou Ba (62) congratulated Faye on his victory on Monday, even before the official provisional results of the election were published on Sunday.

This is the first time in the history of the West African country that a new president has been elected in the first round of voting. Counting had already indicated a clear lead for 44-year-old Faye just a few hours after the polling stations closed on Sunday evening.

Trend-setting ballot
The election to succeed Macky Sall, who has been in power since 2012, was seen as a landmark election for the country, which has a population of around 18 million. Senegal is one of the most stable democracies in Africa and, unlike other countries in the region, has not experienced an uprising or military coup since its independence from France in 1960. Sall is praised for his success in economic development in the country, where oil and gas production is due to begin this year. Human rights activists, on the other hand, criticize the restriction of political freedoms during his time in office.

Faye ran for the camp of opposition leader Ousmane Sonko and his disbanded African Patriots of Senegal for Labor, Ethics and Fraternity (Pastef) party. Sonko, who is revered by young Senegalese in particular as a critic of the elites and a fighter against corruption, was not allowed to run himself due to a conviction in a defamation trial.

Unknown candidate as plan B
Faye, who was completely unknown until a few months ago, Sonko's close confidant and ex-secretary general of the party, was nominated as Plan B. The tax official was only released from prison under an amnesty law ten days before the election together with Sonko, where he had been serving time since last April on charges of defamation and insulting judges because he had criticized the judiciary in Sonko's trial in a Facebook post. During the election campaign, Faye campaigned with a broom to cleanse Senegal of corruption and bad governance.

Weeks of political crisis
There had been a political crisis for weeks before the election. Although Sall had renounced his candidacy for a controversial third term in office following political pressure, he then surprisingly canceled the presidential election scheduled for February 25 on February 3 due to disagreements over the approval of candidates. After protests resulting in four deaths and weeks of tug-of-war between the institutions, the election finally took place around a month late. A good 7.3 million voters were registered. The official results are expected later this week.