If the rumor had been hovering for months, its conformation (after two hours of harrowing suspense during an address on public television) had a thunderous effect. On Saturday, February 3, only hours before the start of the electoral campaign, Senegalese president Macky Sall announced the postponement of the country's presidential election – due to be held on February 25. "My solemn commitment not to run in the election remains unchanged," said Sall. " I will initiate an open national dialogue to bring together the conditions for a free, transparent, and inclusive election in a peaceful and reconciled Senegal."
However, with three weeks to go, the head of state has given no date for the ballot, leaving the matter to the national Assembly, whose bureau approved a bill to postpone the election by six months on Saturday morning. Earlier, it had set up a parliamentary commission of inquiry to shed light on the candidate selection process. The bill has every chance of being passed, as the presidential majority and the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), which support the initiative, represent more than three-quarters of the Assembly's elected representatives.
The political crisis began with the exclusion of Karim Wade, son of former president Abdoulaye Wade (2000-2012), from the presidential race. According to the Constitutional Council, this was due to the late renunciation of his French nationality, as being exclusively Senegalese is one of the conditions for candidacy. However, the PDS candidate and former Dakar mayor Khalifa Sall, excluded from the 2019 presidential election following judicial convictions, had negotiated, through the intermediary of the religious leaders of Touba and Tivaouane, the possibility of regaining his eligibility by participating in the national dialogue launched by Macky Sall in June 2023. Two months later, the Assembly voted to reinstate them on the lists.
"The ruling camp was surprised by Karim Wade's non-qualification. For the president, there is this bitter feeling of having given the impression of having broken his word to the religious leaders. The powers that be don't understand how, at the same time, the judges validated the candidacy of Bassirou Diomaye Faye [opponent Ousmane Sonko's Plan B, whose candidacy was rejected], whose party has nonetheless been dissolved," said a source close to the president.
Shortly after the publication on January 20 of the final list of candidates validated by the Constitutional Council, Karim Wade's camp condemned cases of corruption and conflicts of interest involving two judges on the body that is supposed to arbitrate the electoral process. The parliamentary Commission of inquiry is supposed to shed light on the process of verifying and validating candidacies for the presidential election. In addition, on Friday, Rose Wardini, a candidate from the Sénégal Nouveau Group, was taken into police custody on suspicion of being French-Senegalese, and therefore of having submitted a false declaration to the Constitutional Council. "The president has no other option than to plead for a postponement because the Council has been discredited. What legitimacy could he have to declare the results if its judges have been corrupted?" said the same source close to the president.
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