Senegal enters last day of tense campaign ahead of key legislative election

Muhamad Yehia

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Politicians in Senegal wrapped up a tense electoral campaign on Friday ahead of a key legislative election this weekend that’s set to determine if the country’s newly-elected president can carry out ambitious reforms.

Voters in Senegal will on Sunday choose 165 lawmakers in Senegal’s assembly, where the party of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye currently does not hold a majority.

Faye, who was voted in in March on an anti-establishment platform, said that has blocked him from executing the reforms he pledged during his campaign, including fighting corruption, reviewing fishing permits for foreign companies, and securing a bigger share from the country’s natural resources for the population.

In September, he dissolved the opposition-led parliament, paving the way for a snap legislative election. His party is facing the Takku Wallu opposition platform led by former President Macky Sall

The campaign for the legislative election was marked by sporadic clashes between different party supporters. Clashes erupted between supporters in central Senegal in recent weeks and the headquarters of an opposition party were set on fire in the capital Dakar, the ministry of the interior said Monday

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On Tuesday, Ousmane Sonko, the country’s prime minister and a popular opposition figure who helped catapult Faye to victory, denounced attacks against supporters of his party PASTEF in Dakar and other cities

“May each patriot they have attacked and injured, be proportionally avenged. We will exercise our legitimate right to respond,” he wrote on X, before back-pedalling and asking his supporters to remain peaceful in a speech later that day

Last month Sonko’s vehicle was attacked with stones as clashes broke out between his supporters and unidentified attackers while he was campaigning in Koungueul, in the center of the country. The leader of an allied party, former minister Malick Gackou, had his arm broken in the incident, according to local media

The presidential election in March tested Senegal’s reputation as a stable democracy in West Africa, a region rocked in recent years by coups and attempted coups

Both Faye and Sonko were released from prison less than two weeks before the vote following a political amnesty announced by outgoing President Macky Sall. Their arrests had sparked months of protests and concerns that Sall would seek a third term in office despite term limits. Rights groups said dozens were killed and about 1,000 were jailed.